LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



WHY IS IT? 



/ 



PROF. J. A. BOYCE. 




COP*„ 

loy 2 



NEW YORK: 
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 

1S92. 




^7/7 X ' 









3*5 



Copyright, 1892, by 

PROF. J. A. BOYCE, 

New York. 



TESTIMONIALS. 



The author has received the following valued 
testimonials to the worth of his book : 

Altooxa, Pa., Sept. 14, 1892. 
To whom it may concern : Having carefully read 
the pages (in proof sheet) of the little work entitled Why 
Is It? we most cheerfully give it our indorsement. The 
author has put in an earnest and fresh way a great many 
old truths and startling facts. The work is a plea for 
national prohibition. The foundation evil of the evils 
which threaten the perpetuity of the nation, the stability 
of our social fabric, and the welfare of the home is, in 
the judgment of the author, intemperance. The body 
of the work, consisting of three chapters on the following 
topics, u Difficulties and Progress of Temperance,' 7 
" Our National Problem — Is the Future of our Country 
worth Protecting ?" and u Our Progress and our Sin," 
is an elucidation of the author's earnest thought touch- 
ing the power and work of the drink demon. There are 
paragraphs in the work wiiich breathe intense convic- 
tion upon a great subject. The whole work will make 
an impression upon anyone w r ho will read it. It is in 
brief compass, a thing so much demanded these days. 
The three chapters comprising the body of the work 
cover but seventy-eight pages. A thoughtful and fear- 
less sermon from the words, " Who slew all these ? n 
2 Kings x, 9, by Rev. Dr. Keyes, forms a fitting conclu- 



4 TESTIMONIALS. 

sion. A preface and sundry items pertaining to our 
postal laws, as introductory matter, complete this little 
book of one hundred and seven pages, \?hich should enjoy 
an extensive sale and a wide reading. That the author 
may realize this twofold purpose of all publications is 
our wish ; the higher purpose of doing good w T ill not 
want accomplishment. This is certain and a central 
element in the author's reward. Very sincerely, 

E. D. Wbiglb. 

Altoona, Pa., Sept. 3, 1892. 
Mit. J. A. Boyce, 

Dear Sir : With pleasure and profit I have read the 
advanced sheets of your forthcoming book, Why Is It ? or, 
Our National Problem. Your book is well printed, reads 
easily, and presents the arguments with which it deals in 
a clear and entertaining style. It should have a lai 
sale and should be placed into the hands of all young 
men who expect to cast a ballot. Yours truly, 

H. R. Bender, 
Pastor of Second M. E. Church, AUoonO) Pa. 

I have read with much interest this little work. It 
treats on the burning question of our nation, and con- 
tains an amount of useful knowledge that everyone 
ought to know. It is written in an attractive style that 
will carry the reader from the beginning to the end and 
will do very much good. 

I most heartily commend the work to all, especially to 
young men and women. N. C. Naylor, 

Pastor of First Baptist Church, Altoona, Pa. 

I indorse the work cordially. J. W. Bain, 

Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Altoona, Pa. 



PREFACE 



We have not been prompted to write this little 
volume through animosity to any, nor for mere 
pastime, but for a deeper, broader, and grander 
object. In fact, we have stolen the time from 
other duties, and we regret that we cannot enter 
more deeply into the consideration of the sub- 
ject as it affects us individually and nationally. 

We beg to submit to the reader the following 
interrogatives, namely : 

Is the propriety of national prohibition a 
question ? 

Is the whisky traffic detrimental to the hap- 
piness and prosperity of this or any country ? 
or does it advance man's happiness in any par- 
ticular ? 

Is it gaining or losing power in our country ? 
Money is power. Are the people of this great 
nation sufficiently interested in this matter ? 

In our State, Pennsylvania, in 1889, about 



6 PREFA CE. 

four hundred thousand voted for whisky, about 
two hundred thousand voted against it, and 
about four hundred thousand stayed at home and 
did not vote. "What does this show us? Four 
hundred thousand voters in our State who for 
money, or the love of evil, would come forward 
to support tin's traffic, and another four hundred 
thousand who, when called upon, are perfectly 
indifferent, in the face of all the evil, Buffering, 
and taxation arising from the traffic. The follow- 
ing letter from the commissioner's office of Blair 
County, Pa., sent during the whisky campaign 
of 1889, is a fair sample of this evil, and we 
think will be of interest : 

Commissioner's Office of Blair County, Pa., 

June 1, 1889. 

A. M.Lloyd, Chairman of Blair County Tern- 

perance Union: 

Dear Sir : In reply to your favor of May 20 
I will state that I have been the clerk to the 
Commissioners of Blair County for the period 
of six years. My experience and means of ob- 
servation as a county official justify me in mak- 
ing the following answers to your interrogatories : 

1. I am satisfied that at least two thirds of the 



PREFA CE. 7 

criminal cases tried in our Court of Quarter Ses- 
sions were the result of the use of intoxicating 
liquor. The murder cases of Eocco Pasabellow 
and Joseph Dillon, which were brought about 
when men were in a frenzy of passion caused 
by drink, cost the county over seven hundred 
dollars. 

2. I believe the abolishment of the saloon 
would tend to a very great reduction of criminal 
court and almshouse expenses. 

3. To fully answer your third question let us 
do a little figuring. The following is a state- 
ment of the expenses of criminal courts, jails, 
amounts paid to Western Penitentiary and to 
the almshouse for the year 1888 : 

Criminal court expenses $7,051 36 

County jail 5,226 80 

Paid to Western Penitentiary 1,319 26 

Almshouse 14,740 80 

Total amount $28,338 22 

Received from liquor license, etc 2,953 96 

Net cost to county $25,384 26 

Having personally inspected every bill of in- 
debtedness entering into the above calculation, 
knowing the origin of that indebtedness, I can 



8 PRE FA CE. 

freely say that three fourths of the above sum, 
or about twenty thousand dollars in round num- 
bers, is the bill of reckoning which this county 
paid last year for the fruits of the liquor traffic. 
I look upon twenty thousand dollars as the net 
cost to the county for the support of the pau- 
pers and criminals made so by strong drink. 
Very respectfully, J. C. Akeks, 

Cleric of County Commissioners. 

Header, we submit these facts to you for your 
consideration, and we ask you to carefully read 
especially the three chapters bearing on the traf- 
fic of whisky ; and if you can extend a helping 
hand to your fellow-beings who are suffering 
from the results of this evil, or assist in remov- 
ing the curse from our country, do so, and may 
God bless you in the effort ! 









CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. p AGE 
Difficulties and Progress of Temperance 19 

CHAPTER II. 
Our National Problem — Is the Future of Ouh Coun- 
try Worth Protecting ? 38 

CHAPTER III. 
Our Progress and Our Sin 67 



Important Information for the Public on Postal Sub- 
jects 11 

We are Servants 13 

The Sermon 94 



INFORM A TION ON POSTAL SER VICE. 1 1 



IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR THE 
PUBLIC ON POSTAL SUBJECTS. 



MAILING AND DIRECTING. 

All mail matter should be addressed plainly, and, if 
to a city having a free delivery, the street and number 
and the post office box of the person addressed should 
be added, if he has any. It is well to give the county 
and State legibly. It is quite important for the sender 
to place his address plainly on the left-hand corner or 
end of all mail matter, so the matter can be returned 
to the sender if not called for at its destination, and pre- 
vent its going to the Dead Letter Office. If first-class 
matter it will be returned free. 

AVOID POOR ENVELOPES. 

Thin envelopes made of unsubstantial paper should 
not be used, as such envelopes are frequently torn open 
from handling without any fault of those who handle 
them. It is best to use stamped envelopes. 

VALUABLE MATTER. 

All valuable matter should be registered. The regis- 
try fee is only ten cents. 

STAMPS AFFIXED. 

Postage stamps should be placed on the upper right- 
hand corner of the addressed side of all mail matter, 
care being taken that they are securely affixed. 



12 INFORMATION ON POSTAL SERVICE. 

POSTMASTERS 

are not required to make change, nor to receive more 
than twenty-five cents in copper or nickel coins, nor to 
affix stamps to letters, except as a matter of courtesy, 
and they must not give credit for postage stamps. 

SUBSCRIBERS 

who change their residence and post office address 
should at once notify the publishers and have the publi- 
cation sent to their new address. 

PRINTED MATTER 

is defined by statute to be the reproduction upon 
paper, by any process except that of handwriting, not 
having the character of an actual and personal corre- 
spondence. 

POSTAGE RATES 

on all mailable articles are classified as first, second, 
third, and fourth class matter, as follows : 

RATE ON FIRST-CLASS MATTER 

is two cents per ounce or fraction thereof. First Olau 
is all matter containing writing, whether sealed or un- 
sealed, and also all matter sealed against inspection. 

RATE ON SECOND-CLASS MATTER 

is one cent per pound or fraction thereof. Second 
Class are periodical publications sent out by publishers 
or news agents and issued at stated intervals. 

RATE ON TniRD-CLASS MATTER 

is one cent per two ounces or fraction thereof. Third 
Class are books, circulars, and printed matter gener- 
ally unsealed and no writing. 



WE ARE SEE VANTS. 1 3 

RATE ON FOURTH-CLASS MATTER 

is one cent per ounce or fraction thereof. Fourth 
Class is merchandise, namely, all matter not embraced 
in the first, second, or third class, and which is not liable 
to destroy or damage the contents of the mail bag. 

LIMIT. 

All packages are limited to four pounds, except single 
books, and except second-class matter at pound rate. 



WE ARE SERVANTS. 

Law makes no allowance for ignorance, but ignorance 
is detrimental to happiness, progress, and true social in- 
tercourse. We are social beings, we live in this world 
to help one another. We are all servants, each one to 
the other. This service to each other is generally sys- 
tematized, but, systematized or unsystematized, the 
more sociability and courtesy we exercise the more suc- 
cessful is our service. We have servants all over the 
civilized world laboring for us, men and women whom 
we never did and never will see; and whose service we 
could not dispense with. 

Especially is this true in our great mail service. In 
no other department of our government, perhaps, is it so 
important to be informed and to render good service as in 
the postal service. The postal service is one of the peo- 
ple's greatest and most important servants at the least 
expense. The people, therefore, should learn to appre- 
ciate this service, and not only to be informed in, but 
to comply with, all the requirements of the postal laws. 



14 WE ABE SERVANTS. 

What greater convenience have we ? and in this pro- 
gressive age how could we get along without it ? We 
might as well live in the -moon or on some inaccessible 
island. This great convenience outside of our cities and 
towns is furnished as far as possible by fourth-class 
post offices, the support of which depends entirely upon 
the community in which they are placed. First, second, 
and third class offices have a fixed salary based upon the 
amount of business they do; hence even in these c; 
the importance of patronage. But fourth-class post of- 
fices receive nothing from the government. Such a post- 
master must furnish a room suitable for the public, fit 
up a lobby, an office with delivery boxes, and furnish 
stove, fuel, lamps, oil, and all necessary conveniences at 
his own expense, and as a rule he musl have an assist- 
ant. He must examine, weigh, make up, determine, 
class, and cancel all mail delivered to the office, sell 
stamps, collect postage, and keep B correct account of 
it all. It becomes necessary for him to be .ready to an- 
swer promptly and correctly all questions in regard to 
postal service, and hence to study carefully a thousand 
pages of postal laws for his guide. 

He must receive, sort, back, stamp, and deliver all 
mail, contend with bad writing and spelling, advertise 
and forward mail, send out special delivery letters within 
one mile, notify, record, and deliver to all parties hav- 
ing registered mail. He must keep a record of all mail 
delivered for registration, giving the class, number, 
date, when sent, name and address of sender, and prepare 
receipt cards to be returned ; and he must keep a daily 
account of all stamps, cards, etc., sold, and also of all 
canceled each day. But this is only a small part of the 
service rendered to the public in a fourth-class office 






WE A RE SER VANTS. I J 

without a salary, and also the pleasant part, if there is 
any pleasure in it. 

That which makes one think of the temptations on 
the mountain, or tries the patience of a Job, or sets the 
teeth and sours the temper is to be endured. The post- 
master is expected to wait immediately on every man, 
woman, and child, and all school children and strangers 
who may wish to kill time by calling or inquiring for 
mail, and if they have no mail they expect the post- 
master to gratify them by dropping everything and 
handling over all the mail in the boxes, and one by one 
perhaps every member of a large family will call for 
mail between the arrivals of mail at the office, and when 
told there is none they will insist that there should be a 
letter, a card, a paper or package, or some kind of ani- 
mal, if nothing else, for them in the mail, and if it has 
not come yet then when will it come? etc. The postmaster 
must listen patiently to all complaints and disappoint- 
ments and explain all causes of delay in the mails, etc. 
Example at window : 

"Any mail?" 

Postmaster. " No mail for you to-day." 

" Isn't there mail in the M box? " 

Postmaster. " Yes; but not for you." 

"Well, I should have a letter to-day, and you are sure 
it didn't come? Could it have been miscarried? Will 
it come in next mail, think? " 

Postmaster. l ' Perhaps. " 

Then after postmaster resumes his work : 

"I want a stamp; I'm in a hurry. Is that stamp on 
right? Shall I drop letter in the box? " 

Postmaster. " Yes'm." 

" When will this letter go out? " 



1 6 WE ABE SEE VA XTS. 

Postmaster. ' ' Next mail. " 

"All right; don't forget to send it. 0, I forgot; is 
there any mail for sister Sue ? " 

Postmaster. "No; I looked for all the family." 

" Well, any mail for Cousin Minnie ?" 

Postmaster. "No; they were here." 

At this point the lady leaves, sends another of the 
family, and so on. 

At close of each quarter an inventory must be made 
and a report of all property on hand — stamps, postal 
cards, envelopes, etc. ; also, all stamps, postal cards, 
etc., sold or canceled during the quarter; of all regis- 
tered matter, of all special delivery business, and the 
total cancellation during the quarter, and remit promptly 
all money due the United States. For this work the 
postmaster receives nothing, and this is only a hint at 
the service rendered to the public; and under all circum- 
stances he must keep sweet, pleasant, and polite to all. 

Now if a fourth-class postmaster receives no salary and 
the government furnishes nothing, how can he thus give 
his services to the public and live? No doubt some are 
ignorant as regards this question, others do not care, just 
so they get the service, while the intelligent part of a 
community always do their duty. Perhaps many, if they 
properly understood how and what their postmaster is 
paid, they would be better citizens in their community 
and help render some compensation for service rendered. 
All the fourth -class postmaster receives for expenses and 
service rendered to the public is his commission on 
stamps actually canceled in the office. Many think they 
are doing the postmaster quite a favor when they call 
and ask him to quit his work and make change for them 
for one or tw T o stamps. They do not seem to realize the 



WE ARE SERVANTS. 17 

fact that when they ask the postmaster to wait on them, 
sell them stamps, make change, deliver to them their 
mail, etc., and then send their mail to another office to 
be mailed, that they are simply robbers, robbing the post- 
master of his time and service. The community is bet- 
ter off without such citizens and such impositions. 

There are over sixty thousand fourth-class postmasters 
in the United States who are public servants and re- 
ceive no salary, but depend upon the patronage of those 
whom they serve and to whom they distribute mail; and 
yet I have known even business men of intelligence to 
call and request the postmaster to drop his work at any 
sacrifice and sell them six or a dozen stamps and make 
change for them, and then they would place the stamps 
on letters in the office and step out to the railroad sta- 
tion and send the letters on the train to the next office to 
be mailed; and those were the men who received the most 
mail at their office and who demanded prompt attention 
in delivering their mail without even thanks. If you 
would call on this class of people for their service with- 
out compensation they would kick quick, kick high, 
and kick long. Such should be invited to buy their 
stamps and receive their mail where they mail their let- 
ters. The public appreciate and patronize this important 
mail service. But the government should make better 
provisions for the fourth-class post offices. 

It is a well-known fact that this class of postmasters 
are indispensable public servants without compensation, 
while all other government employes are adequately 
compensated. From five to ten cents a day and furnish 
a room, or perhaps in some villages from twenty to forty 
cents a day, is no adequate compensation for this indis- 
pensable public service. 
2 



WHY IS IT? 



CHAPTEK I. 

DIFFICULTIES AND PROGRESS OF TEMPERANCE. 

If we go back and trace up the dark history 
of intemperance and intoxicants and their ef- 
fects upon the human family we will find in 
them a brother agent with the serpent in bring- 
ing upon mankind poverty, woe, pain, and death. 
The Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans had intoxi- 
cating wines and strong drinks, and we find the 
Bible condemning them with no uncertain words ; 
such as : 

11 Woe to them that are valiant to drink wine, 

And men of might to drink strong drink ! 

For they have cast away the law of Jehovah of hosts, 

And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel." 

— Isa. v, 22-24. 
"It is not for kings to drink wine, 
Nor for princes to desire strong drink-, 
Lest they drink and forget the law, 
And pervert the rights of any of the afflicted." 

— Prow xxx, 4, 5. 



20 WHY IS ITT 

" Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, 
That they may follow strong drink ; 
That continue until night, till wine inflame them ; 
Therefore my people are gone into captivity." 

In western and northern Europe and the 
British Isles we find this evil prominent. Where 
deadly feuds were numerous and where life was 
held very cheap drunkenness was universal. 
When the American continent was discovered the 
aborigines were acquainted with only a few kinds 
of mild intoxicants, but drunkenness was intro- 
duced with the colonies and grew with their 
growth, and has pervaded the American society. 
We find that the colonics soon passed laws to 
regulate or check the evils of drunkenness. The 
Plymouth Colony passed laws in 1G5S to disfran- 
chise drunkards. 

At a very early period the license principle 
was recognized. The drinking habit of all 
classes, including even ministers, hung like a 
dead weight upon the progress and happiness of 
the people ; and such cannot be wondered at 
when a meetinghouse could not be raised with- 
out rum, and births, marriages, and deaths were 
alike celebrated by a free use of intoxicating 



DIFFICULTIES AND PROGRESS. 21 

drinks, and the ministers furnished with a good 
glass of the dear creature to clear the reverend 
throat. Thus the evil increased till we come to 
the midnight hour, or darkest period in the history 
of intemperance, which reached its culmination 
about the year 1825. At this time intemper- 
ance had become domesticated. On all social 
and festive occasions, at funerals, amid the toils 
of everyday labor, at the noonday meal in many 
families, and in the entertainment of the clergy 
ardent spirits were freely used. 

It need not be said that this period was one of 
low morals. Let it be remembered that this state 
of affairs existed under a stringent license sys- 
tern ; but has not intemperance always flourished 
•under license? What an untold blessing that, in 
the dark days, God always had a chosen few ! 
"When the dark cloud of intern perance hung over 
our young republic, modern Jonadabs and Ee- 
chabs rose up as heroic defenders of virtue and 
sobriety. 

Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and General 
Putnam were among the first noble advocates 
of temperance and virtue. The following are 
quotations from letters written by General 



22 WHY IS IT? 

Putnam to the County Court in Connecticut, 
1782: 

u Gentlemen : Being an enemy to idleness, 
dissipation, and intemperance, I would object 
against any measure that would be conducive 
thereto. . . . Multiplying license houses pro- 
motes idleness and intemperance and ruins mor- 
als, and especially as the grand object of the can- 
didates for license is money, and when that is 
the object men are not apt to be over tender of 
people's morals or purses." 

The first temperance association in this coun- 
try was organized in 17S9 by respectable farm- 
ers in the State of Connecticut. The first 
society with a constitution and by-laws was 
organized in 1S0S, in the town of Morean, 
N". T.j designed to reform in public morals, in- 
temperance, Sabbath-breaking, and profanity. 

From this time the cause of temperance was 
gradually introduced through the States and 
taken up by the Churches, but it made slow 
progress. They started out by advocating tem- 
perate drinking, but soon observed that many of 
their temperate drinkers died drunkards. In 
1840, in Baltimore, a club of six inebriates or- 



DIFFICULTIES AXD PROGRESS. 23 

ganized for social drinking, and by attending a 
temperance meeting and bearing an able speaker 
a discussion arose between them which resulted 
in their organizing a temperance society of total 
abstinence, called the Washington Society. This 
movement soon reached New York and spread 
through the States, known as the TTashingto- 
nians, and thousands signed the pledge. 

Able advocates came forward, such as Bev. 
W. Fisk, John B. Gough, Father T. Mathew, 
Hon. S. B. Chase, Bev. L. Beecher, and many 
others. The press also gave a helping hand, 
such as the American Tract Society, the Ameri- 
can Sunday School Union, and the American 
Temperance Union, and others. But notwith- 
standing these efforts to save the erring intem- 
perance seemed to hold the fort, and through it, 
to the disgrace of civilization, deeds of the 
greatest atrocity were constantly committed by 
drunken men. Crime trod upon crime and 
blood touched blood. Even in Massachusetts, 
the leading State in industry, morality, and good 
order, the official returns in 1S39 showed that 
the number of paupers produced by intemper- 
ance was eight thousand, costing the good people 



24 WHY IS IT? 

one hundred and seventy thousand dollars, and 
that five sixths of the four thousand in her 
penitentiaries were habitually intemperate. 

About this time an effort was made throughout 
the country to suppress the whisky traffic. Sev- 
eral States voted " No license." In New York a 
great effort was made in 18-iG to gain the State, 
and more than five sixths of the towns and cities 
gave majorizes against license. 

This caused much rejoicing by the friends of 
humanity and reform, hut it was short-lived. 
The whisky men appealed to the courts on 
the ground that a prohibitory statute was re- 
pugnant to the laws and Constitution of the 
United States, but the Supreme Court at Wash- 
ington decided against them. This was another 
victory for the cause of God and humanity. 
.But in the State of New York joy was turned 
to grief. Politicians were active to make 
money and gain votes. The whisky force 
made a desperate effort, and in two hundred out 
of three hundred towns which had voted " no 
license" the decision was reversed, and in some 
cases by a large majority, and the Legislature 
gave a quietus to the temperance expectations. 



DIFFICULTIES AXD PROGRESS. 25 

The law was repealed, throwing the State back 
to the old statutes. 

Thus the conflict between whisky and tem- 
perance, between brutality and humanity, be- 
tween idleness, vice, or debauchery and the 
sobriety, happiness, and progress of the people 
and nations has been kept up through the history 
of our nation and also in Europe. 

In England, in I860, there was an army of 
156,703 legalized dealers in the traffic, and in 
1S70 this army was increased to 1S5,121. In 
1860 the legalized cost to England for intoxi- 
cants was £81.222,172, and in 1881 it was 
£127,071,160. This does not include the adul- 
terated cost, or money spent for adulterated 
whisky, which was great. 

The progress in the United States by the tem- 
perance reforms was overcome to a great extent 
by the wave of immigration from other lands. 
Many noble characters came to our shores, who 
were the best advocates of reform, but very 
many more were from the almshouses, jails, and 
slums of the Old World. 

The Howard Society of London said that 
seventy-four per cent of the Irish discharged 



26 WHY IS IT? 

convicts found their way to the United 
States. This element has had a detrimental 
effect upon our society and the cause of tem- 
perance. 

In 18S0 our population was 50,155,783, and 
of this number 6,679,943 were born in foreign 
countries. Most of these newcomers are not 
only liquor-drinkers but are also our principal 
liquor-dealers. 

We know that some of the best citizens in 
our country are foreigners, and we should ex- 
tend to them the right hand of fellowship. All 
who come to promote our morals and obey our 
laws arc welcome ; but this class of foreigners 
is limited. 

It is a well-known fact that two thirds of the 
entire liquor business in our country is in the 
hands of a low class of foreigners. 

A canvass in Philadelphia in 1S76 proved 
that out of 8,034 whisky-dealers 205 were 
Americans, 672 unknown, and the balance, 7,157, 
were foreigners ; and more than two thirds of 
these had been inmates of prisons. 

The mobs that insulted the women engaged 
in the crusade were very largely of the criminal 



DIFFICULTIES AND PROGRESS. 27 

class of foreigners wlio were dealers in and 
drinkers of whisky. 

The Alameda (in California) outrage, which 
has no parallel in civilized history, was per- 
petrated by members of the San Francisco Ger- 
man Saloons-keepers' Society. 

In 1890 we had an army of 208,535 engaged 
in the traffic of intoxicating drinks, and 196,800 
of these were retail dealers. 

ISTow, it is estimated that every saloon averages 
eighty regular customers, and these eighty cus- 
tomers have eighty votes, which have just as 
much power each in our government as your 
vote or mine, and even more, through the im- 
proper influence of the money accumulated from 
this traffic. Now, we can see that not only 
powerful but dangerous forces have been and 
are being transferred to our shores to antagonize 
and, if possible, to demoralize and destroy the 
principles that are intended to lead this na- 
tion to success and true greatness. It has been 
and ever will be a fatal error for this or any 
other nation to open its doors to this class of 
immigrants. They have been and ever will be 
detrimental to the morals and prosperity of our 



28 WHY IS IT? 

people, while a highly civilized and moral class 
of immigrants would be our greatest blessing. 

The temperance organizations, the influence 
and work of Christian women — such as the 
Woman's Crusade, the Women's Christian Tem- 
perance Union, — and the labors of such men as 
Reynolds, Osgood, and Murphy, and the Chris- 
tian Church have been a great check to tin's 
monster national evil. But though great gain 
lias been realized in the promotion of morals and 
sobriety, yet intemperance still remains a gigan- 
tic evil, whose magnitude should not be under- 
rated by the American people. 

When we consider the fearful adulteration 
put in the traffic, aside from the unadul- 
terated evils, its aggregates, in quantities, cofi 
agonies, deaths, crimes, pauperism, lunacy, 
idiocy, disease, temporal and eternal ruin, are 
of inconceivable and appalling proportions. 

It is the mightiest of all forces with which 
morality, decency, and humanity have to contend. 
The whisky company has at its control a capi- 
tal of $1,000,000,000. It has employed in the 
business an army of 20S,535 men. The direct 
drink bill of this nation in 1S90, as nearly as can 



DIFFICULTIES AND PROGRESS. 29 

be ascertained, was 8900,000,000. These pa- 
trons drank 30,021,079 barrels of malt liquors 
and 109,275,923 gallons of distilled spirits, to 
say nothing about the augmentation by adulter- 
ation, which is placed by best authorities and 
lowest estimates at double the amount. It is 
difficult to realize the magnitude of these figures. 
If this army were to march in ranks of two 
abreast and three feet apart they would form a 
line nearly six miles long. To count sixty in a 
minute at ten hours a day it would require 
about eight and a half years for one man to 
count the number of gallons of distilled spirits 
consumed in 1890, and if this is doubled by 
adulteration it would require seventeen years ; 
and it would require about seventy years to count 
the gallons of malt liquors consumed in this one 
year, or eighty-seven years in all for one man to 
count the total number of gallons of intoxicants 
consumed in 1890, and about sixty-nine years 
to count the drink bill for 1S90, or eighty-seven 
men one year to count the gallons drank, and 
sixty-nine men one year to count the dollars 
spent in one year. The assessed valuation of all 
the real estate in the United States in 1S90 was 



30 WHY IS IT? 

about $24,000,000,000, and at this rate of drink- 
ing we will consume the entire valuation of this 
nation in about twenty-six years. Is not this 
appalling? Can any citizen be so stupid, so 
blind, so far sunk in depravity as not to be able 
to find some better way to spend this enormous 
sum of money i We have made no reduction 
for the legitimate use of alcohol; but anyone 
knows that enough alcohol is made and not re- 
ported to the government to supply all mechan- 
ical and medical necessities, to say nothing 
about the increase by adulteration. Now, that 
this material waste of what God has in his 
mercy and goodness given to us is a national 
wrong anyone will acknowledge. Suppose we 
build 10,000 churches at 810,000 each and 
10,000 schoolhouses at $10,000 each, and edu- 
cate 100,000 children at $1,000 each, and fur- 
nish 10,000 homes for the paupers and poor at 
$10,000 each ; still we have not spent the 
half of the national drink bill. "Well, we have 
4,500,000 persons in the United States who can- 
not read and write- Suppose we give each one of 
these one year's schooling, which will only cost 
us $60,000,000; we still have $410,000,000 



DIFFICULTIES AXD PROGRESS. 31 

left to spend for something else. Now, can we 
do no better than to spend this balance in pour- 
ing poison down the throats of our citizens to 
produce strife and murder? Better build 
440,000 more churches and schoolhouses at 
$1,000 each to educate, moralize, and civilize the 
poor drunkards. 

The manufacturing of fictitious liquors would 
give us a very beneficial chapter if we had statis- 
tics ; but these nefarious compounds never come 
to the knowledge of the government officials, 
and therefore cannot be computed. But gentle- 
men who are well informed estimate these fic- 
titious liquors at from one hundred to three 
hundred per cent more than that which is 
distilled. It is said that most of the drinking- 
shops purchase but small quantities of pure 
spirits — just enough to form the basis. These 
imitations are confined to wines and distilled 
spirits, and are often spoken of as killing at forty 
rods, or as making an Irishman jump into the 
air and want to fight the moon, or as making an 
Englishman believe that he is all Johnny Bull 
except the head and tail, or as making an Ameri- 
can think he owns the world. 



32 WHY IS IT? 

It is believed that every year these adulterations 
become more extensive. We have referred to 
them only incidentally, but it is well to notice 
some of the ingredients that enter into these 
compounds called whisky, such as logwood, 
sulphuric acid, arsenic, red pepper, mix vomica, 
gypsum, and coculus indicus. It is said that par- 
ties have made money selling receipts for this 
purpose. 

If the estimates of experts are correct at least 
two hundred per cent of the present day whisky 
sold as a beverage is fictitious. Is it any won- 
der that this vile traffic fosters the basest 
passions, promotes sin and misery, and gii 
birth to the worst crimes? Is it to be won- 
dered at that men are deprived of their reason, 
that we see men dragged down into the mud 
and slime and filth of corruption and degraded 
by this same power? It spares none. Priest 
and prophet, ignorant and learned, the high and 
the low, the young and the old, all fall victims to 
its debasing and corrupting powers. Go to the 
ginshop, and see its bewitching power. Cus- 
tomer after customer comes in and pays for his 
glass of poison and passes out with an oath in his 



DIFFICULTIES AND PROGRESS. 33 

mouth and inflamed eyes in his head, to make 
room for another. 

Wise legislators, you are responsible ; you 
foster these horrid dens of vice. This great na- 
tional evil receives its legalization from you. 
Ye wise statesmen, ye public servants of the 
people, against you is this greatest of evils 
charged ; you wield your influence and power 
against the labors of the Churches, against the 
Sabbath school work of the land, against the 
educators and reformers of our country, by sup- 
porting this great demoralizing evil by law ; 
yea, you exert your power as lawmakers against 
the very best interests of our country and hu- 
manity. 

We may boast of the progress of temperance 
in our country, but the fact is we are in the 
midst of a great battlefield. The forces of 
whisky were never more compact and strong 
and better organized for battle, either in Great 
Britain or in the United States, than now. Their 
leagues are everywhere ; they are well fortified 
by the law and by capital ; they have robbed 
the poor of the land, they have made orphans 
and widows, they have made many homeless and 



34 WHY IS IT? 

sorrowful to amass money, by which they have 
fortified their business as with a great wall like 
that of ancient Babylon ; and the wall will never 
decay, nor the traffic die for want of drinkers, 
and temperance men and women can never sub- 
due the traffic, as long as it is legalized and sus- 
tained by law. That we should have so many 
drinking-shops and such an enormous expendi- 
ture of monev, and so much drunkenness and 
crime resulting therefrom, is lamentable, but 
nothing will permanently prevent it until the 
government declares that the liquor traffic is an 
evil and must be put down ; and if this is not 
done we will be called upon to take up the lamen- 
tation of Jeremiah : "Mine eye runneth down 
with rivers of water for the destruction of the 
(laughter of my people" (Lam. iii, 48) ; "They 
that did feed delicately are desolate in the 
streets: they that were brought up in scarlet 
embrace dunghills" (Lam. iv, 5) ; u The kings 
of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, 
would not have believed that the adversary and 
the enemy should have entered into the gates of 
Jerusalem " (Lam. iv, 12). 

We can expect temperance labor to fail in the 



DIFFICULTIES AND PROGRESS. 35 

face of legalized temptation and opposition. 
What has become of the zealous labors of Mur- 
phy, Osgood, Reynolds, and a host of others ? 
Lost, simply because the law was against them. 
The license iniquity must be annihilated ; facili- 
ties and temptations to drink must be removed 
by law before society can be protected against it. 

The liquor-dealers would soon be willing to 
abandon the business and follow some more hon- 
orable and humane occupation if they were made 
accountable by law for all damage resulting from 
their traffic, such as supporting the paupers and 
ruined families, made so by the traffic, paying 
cost of criminals and criminal prosecutions origi- 
nating from and through their traffic, and be 
made legally accountable for all the insanity, 
disease, and death arising therefrom, and for all 
annoyance and expense to society. 

Property owners, as a rule, are sensitive to un- 
due taxation, and it is right they should be ; and 
yet it is surprising how calmly they submit to 
paying the enormous expenses arising from the 
whisky traffic, and the whisky-dealers receive 
such enormous profits from the business. Is it 
not surprising that there has not been a general 



36 WET IS IT? 

rebellion against such unjust and needless taxa- 
tion resulting from this traffic ? 

If the traffic is to be supported by law the 
lawmakers should remove this burden from the 
people and place it upon the capital that produces 
it. It would be a very unjust law. that would 
legalize and support a company or firm in a busi- 
ness that was fraught with fatal dangers to the 
entire community, and give the firm all the 
profits arising from the business and compel the 
community to carry all the responsibilities, and 
especially if those responsibilities were fraught 
with physical and mental ruin and the premature 
death of thousands. 

We, like all other nations, are out on the ocean 
of time with our sails unfurled ; our destination 
is the haven of success or failure. The only 
visible rock of danger that lies ahead of us is the 
whisky traffic. Are we fools enough to ship- 
wreck our vessel of state with the danger in full 
view ? or do we mean to maintain our position 
before the world and have a safe voyage to the 
port of success? If we do we must turn our 
backs upon the whisky traffic, and have Him for 
our captain who can say to the waves, " Peace, be 



DIFFICULTIES AND PROGRESS. 37 

still." Be it remembered that lie will not com- 
mand a drunken crew. 

Our only safety is national prohibition. This 
is, as yet, a child of hope. 

The evil which it seeks to remove is the crime 
of crimes. It is the only sure and practical rem- 
edy against the traffic of intoxicants. Its princi- 
ples have been repeatedly vindicated by the local, 
district, and United States courts. It is in 
harmony with the soundest political economy ; 
and political economy recognizes the liquor 
traffic as the active cause of four fifths of all the 
crimes, pauperism, lunacy, wretchedness, dis- 
order, and affliction that come upon the human 
family. If the use of alcoholic drinks were 
productive of good their use could not be justly 
prohibited ; but, being the prolific source of un- 
told evil, their sale as beverages should be pro- 
hibited, and we should labor to educate the minds 
of the people to this end. 

Our golden opportunity is with the children of 
our nation. Let the old drunkards and blas- 
phemers die such if they will, but let us take 
care of the children and educate them to tem- 
perance and Christianity. 



38 WHY IS IT? 



CHAPTER II. 

OUR NATIONAL PROBLEM— IS THE FUTURE OF OUR 
COUNTRY WORTH PROTECTING? 

Infancy and youth is a very important period 
of time. This is true with ns either individually 

or nationally. Success and progress in civiliza- 
tion do not depend upon the increasing popu- 
lation or wealth of a nation, but upon its incr 
ing intelligence, sobriety, and virtue. 

If we want our hoys, into whose hands the 
administration of this great government will 
soon pass, to prove a blessing to themselves and 
to the coming generation, they must be care- 
fully guarded, educated, and trained from infancy 
to manhood, and not left to grow up like evil 
and obnoxious weeds that encumber the ground. 

The same is true of this great government of 
ours, which is growing with such great rapidity 
and stretching its wings of national fame to the 
uttermost parts of the world. 

This nation, although it is already a giant with 



OUR NATIONAL PROBLEM. 39 

untold wealth and a model government, is but 
in its infancy ; and upon its tender care and wise 
administration, its intelligence and purity, de- 
pends its mighty future. It is true that while 
there are many evils in our midst yet the great- 
est of these, as a rule, has been carefully pro- 
tected and sustained by the laws of our land, and 
as much so as though our national life and hap- 
piness depended upon it, notwithstanding it 
strews death and destruction across our path and 
stabs at the heartstrings of our young republic. 

In this important period of our national his- 
tory, while we are giving laws to the rest of the 
world, and the empire is being transferred from 
Europe to America, and intellect is the ultimate 
winner, sobriety and energy the prize-giver, and 
honor the only route to reach permanent success, 
we, as American people, should look more 
thoughtfully after the infancy and the future of 
our growing republic. 

In the vegetable world its seed is in itself 
after its kind ; and it is just as true of a commu- 
nity, a city, or a nation. Commonwealths, like 
men, have their infancy and their manhood, 
which is the formative period for old age and 



40 WHY IS IT? 

happiness. It is the first permanent settlers 
who impress themselves and their characters on 
the future. Powerful influences may in the 
course of time produce important modifications ; 
but it is the early influence which is farthest 
reaching and is generally decisive. 

Think of much of our Western territory set- 
tled by foreigners in large colonies, from all na- 
tionalities, un-American, and many, perhaps, un- 
civilized, each of whom will exercise as much 
power in the affairs of this government as you or 
I, and then remember that our territory west of 
the Mississippi is more than double that of the 
East, and must very soon become a mighty power 
in this great government, with all its foreign 
element, many of them hostile to each other, but 
united in conspiring against Christian institu- 
tions, temperance, and civilization. These ele- 
ments are fast precipitating themselves into fixed 
institutions and consolidated character. They 
will not wait our convenience nor indulge our 
dilatory policy ; so now is the nick of time. 
With matters which pertain to our future pros- 
perity and progress now is- always the nick of 
time. 



OUR NATIONAL PROBLEM. 41 

It is much easier for us to form than to re- 
form — easier to mold than to file the cold iron 
into shape. If a community produces or fails to 
produce good citizens, learned and Christian men 
and women, the records of the founders, as a 
rule, will furnish an explanation. There is no 
likelihood that the foreign immigration now 
pouring in upon us in such large numbers is 
ever to be supplanted by another stock. Hence 
we should consider the moral and political influ- 
ence of immigration upon our nation's future. 

Our foreign immigration last year, ending 
June 30, 1891, was 500,000, which exceeded the 
preceding year by 100,000. This foreign immi- 
gration is sufficient to form ten cities in our 
midst with a population of 50,000 each. Think 
for a moment. The Secretary of the Treasury, 
in his annual report, says : " An increasing pro- 
portion of immigrants is coming to us from those 
classes and those countries of Europe whose peo- 
ple are least adapted to, and least prepared for, 
citizenship in a free republic, and are least in- 
clined to assimilate with the general body of 
American citizens. The vast majority of them 
crowd into our cities and large towns, with the 



42 WHY IS IT? 

inevitable result of overstocking the labor mar- 
ket and depressing wages, while the least efficient 
and more vicious among them soon drift into 
our poorhouses and prisons to be a continual bur- 
den upon our people. The worst and most im- 
portant cases are the criminals, ex-convicts, 
polygamists, and illegally assisted immigrants." 

We must not fail to recognize the high worth 
of many of our citizens of foreign birth, not a 
few of whom are eminent in the pulpit and in 
all the learned professions. Many also come to 
us warm advocates of our free institutions and 
aid us very materially in promoting a Christian 
civilization. But these same Christian and 
learned foreigners are sensible of the fact that 
they do not by any means represent the mass of 
immigrants. As a rule the typical immigrant 
is one whose horizon has been narrow, whose 
moral and religious training has been neglected, 
and whose ideas of life are low. Xot a few 
belong to the pauper and criminal classes. This 
is to be regretted very much. If we could re- 
ceive only the better class they would prove a 
blessing in place of a curse to us. 

It appears that twenty-four per cent of the 



OUR NATIONAL PROBLEM. 43 

Irish discharged convicts have found their way 
to the United States, and, being ignorant and 
hearing so much about our freedom, they think 
there is no restraint placed upon them here, and 
new temptations open up to them, and their as- 
sociations with the weaker class of Americans 
have a tendency to demoralize society. In fact, 
a great deal of the piety in our Churches is too 
weak to come in contact with such society and 
bear transportation. It cannot sometimes en- 
dure even a slight change of climate or spend a 
few weeks at a summer watering place, and is 
left at home. 

Is it strange then that those w r ho come from 
other lands, whose reputation, if any, is left be- 
hind, should sink to a lower moral level? Our 
population of foreign extract is sadly conspicu- 
ous in our criminal records. It furnishes the 
greater part of our criminals, affects the morals 
of our native population, depreciates our Sab- 
bath, the result of which is sadly manifest in 
our cities, wdiere the Sabbath is being trans- 
formed from a holy day into a holiday ; but it is 
by far the most effective instrumentality in de- 
bauching popular morals in the liquor traffic, 



44 WHY IS IT 7 

which is chiefly carried on by foreigners. Now, 
the whisky traffic being one of our greatest 
national evils, wholesale immigration of the lower 
class is the brother to it. It is not deniable that 
foreign immigration feeds this great curse which 
has established its throne in this greatest of na- 
tions. Of the manufacturers, dealers, brewer-, 
saloon-keepers, and consumers in the whisky 
traffic about eighty per cent are foreign burn. 
And we as a people intrench this nefarious 
business, thus conducted principally by foreign- 
ers, behind the law, and give the broad seal of 
state to this infamous traffic. 

Under a license system of two centuries, and 
through its protection and influence, America is 
to-day struggling under a fearful load of intem- 
perance, which bids fair to ruin the nation unless 
deliverance shall come. 

It is said that England, with five hundred 
years of license, is the worst liquor-cursed nation 
in the world ; and America, under the same sys- 
tem and supported by foreigners, is fast follow- 
ing in the same road to ruin. 

A correspondent from London recently gave 
us a fearful picture of this brutalizing curse of 



OUR NATIONAL PROBLEM. 45 

drunkenness in England, such as boys and girls 
pawning their garments for beer, mothers ca- 
rousing until midnight, while crying children are 
tugging at their dresses. He says that on one 
Sunday night, from 9:30 to 10:30 p. m., he 
counted tw T o hundred drunken women on the 
streets of London, and that a large majority of 
the clergy are moderate drinkers. 

The temperance sentiment seems to be lost 
sight of. One clergyman, he says, had courage 
enough recently in a public speech to urge par- 
ents not to give strong drink to their children 
too young, and to teach them to refrain from 
drinks between meals. He says that near the 
close of the last session of Parliament a bill was 
introduced proposing to close the Parliament 
bar ; but it was ridiculed all over England. 

The latest statistics show that drunkenness is 
increasing with alarming rapidity, and especially 
among the women, and scarcely one tenth of the 
population are total abstainers. The Church 
Times openly opposes total abstinence. The 
Daily Telegraph, which has a large circulation, 
recently opened its columns to victims of the 
drink traffic, and many letters were received from 



46 WHY IS IT? 

men, women, and children, telling the most piti- 
able and heartrending tales of woe. These let- 
ters daily increased until thousands had to be 
thrown into the waste-basket for want of room 
to print them. The picture painted in these let- 
ters by trembling hands was the blackest ever 
presented to the public gaze. 

Notwithstanding that London was permitted 
thus to hear the pleadings of the broken-hearted 
husbands, wives, parents, and children, and see 
some of the misery and horror caused by this 
fiendish traffic, yet she closes her eyes and hard- 
ens her heart and permits the work of destruc- 
tion to go on. 

Should not we be aroused to immediate action 
and make war against this powerful and grow- 
ing evil ? Charging high fees for license will not 
by any means educate the people against this 
adulterated beverage, nor in any way remove the 
evil from us. It only dignifies and legalizes the 
business, and thus to authorize the business and 
then urge men to abstain from patronizing 
it is not an honorable way to transact busi- 
ness, to say nothing about the evils resulting 
from the business ; and we should cover our 



OUR NATIONAL PROBLEM 47 

heads with shame at our self-condemnation. Oar 
inconsistency in this matter, considering that we 
are a Christian people, or profess to be, and are 
at least living in an age of light and knowledge, 
and in a land flooded with Bibles, is self-condem- 
nation in God's sight and a stigma upon us as a 
progressive and enlightened people. 

Every effort should be put forth to educate 
the public mind to the importance and incon- 
sistency of this matter. Abraham Lincoln said : 
" "With public sentiment nothing can fail ; 
without public sentiment nothing can succeed. 
Consequently he who molds public sentiment 
goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pro- 
nounces decisions. lie makes statutes and de- 
cisions possible to be executed." 

Public sentiment should not only be educated 
against this growing evil, but the public mind 
should be made to see and realize the increasing 
danger of this traffic and the increasing difficul- 
ties in removing it from our nation. 

There are three difficulties now in our midst 
against which the temperance element must war. 
First, the increased and increasing capital of the 
liquor men, now estimated at $8,000,000,000. 



48 WHY IS IT? 

Second, this power is well organized and works 
as one man to promote and protect the busi- 
ness against any temperance movement that 
looks toward legislation, and when necessary 
the money to defeat such movements is easily 
and quickly raised ; and in our clay money is 
king. Third, the public appetite for this bever- 
age, and especially on the part of our foreign 
element, which causes this class of voters to sup- 
port the whisky cause. Now, this class of VOfc 
through immigration, are growing on our hands. 
As we have seen, the whisky organizations are 
being perfected; their capital is not only inert . 
ing in this country, but foreign capital is thrown 
into the American coffers, and through this 
money power our voters and politicians are 
reached, and even now our politicians tremble in 
the presence of this united whisky power. 

Now, with these facts before us, in all candor 
should we not awake from our lethargy and look 
after the future of our country, the welfare of 
our children and our children's children? One 
stitch in time saves nine. Our nation, as we 
have said, is only in its infancy, and now, if ever, 
is the time to look after its future greatness and 



OUR NATIONAL PROBLEM. 49 

prosperity. We should learn a lesson from the 
past history of nations. 

God has most wonderfully blessed us and has 
given us a country that flows with milk and 
honey; but if we, through intoxication, Mor- 
monism, anarchism, socialism, and the money 
power drift into dens of wickedness and cor- 
ruption and drunken revelry, God's blessing and 
protection will not go with us, and the hand- 
writing wiU appear on the wall, or, like that once 
mighty Rome, our sun will set and we will pass 
into the hands of barbarians. The shores of 
time are strewed with the wreckage of mighty civ- 
ilizations. Republics come and go, empires wax 
and wane. Persia, Greece, Egypt, Chaldea, 
Babylon, and Rome, one after another launched 
their mighty crafts ; but where are they all to- 
day ? Isot even skeletons of former greatneas 
are left. Will it be so with America ? Is not 
her speed too reckless ? Will not her intoxicated 
crew under high and low license dash her vessel 
to pieces on the shoals of time, and posterity 
point the finger of shame at this once God- 
blessed but then sin-cursed republic ? 

Israel was miraculously blessed and cared for 



50 WHY IS IT? 

by a divine Providence, and was the nation of 
the world, but she was too reckless ; she forgot 
God, she became corrupt. " Woe to the crown 
of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glo- 
rious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the 
head of the fat valleys of them that are over- 
come with wine ! . . . The crown of pride, the 
drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under 
feet." Where is she to-day ? Listen to the 
words of the Master : " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 
thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them 
which are sent unto thee, how often would I 
have gathered thy children together, even as a 
hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and 
ye would not ! " 

We believe that God inspired the men who 
framed our Constitution and led our armies to 
victory. Gladstone says : " The American Con- 
stitution is the most wonderful work ever struck 
off at a given time by the brain and purposes of 
man." They were to form a national govern- 
ment, clothed with national authority, that would 
command the obedience of the people from 
ocean to ocean and from lake to gulf, whose 
flas: would wave hisdi anions; the nations of the 



OUR NATIONAL PROBLEM. 51 



world, and also arrange a local self-government, 
free to adjust itself to any local changes. This 
is the marvelous past of our government. While 
it is as strong as iron, yet it is flexible and adjust- 
able. They built the hull perfect and durable, 
but made the interior with adjustable shelves 
that could be changed to suit all future emergen- 
cies. 

And while we have mightily changed and 
grown from the old thirteen States, we are nev- 
ertheless still inside the grand old hull con- 
structed by these men. It is easy to form a gov- 
ernment for the present, but difficult to frame one 
for distant ages. The original thirteen States 
formed their separate constitutions, and every- 
one of these has been shattered by growth and 
change. Not one of the original charters is in 
force to-day. 

During the last one hundred years nearly all 
the nations of the world have been going through 
convulsive changes. Of Italy's seven thrones 
there is scarcely one to-day. The convulsions of 
Germany have rocked every throne in Europe. 
France has run the complete gamut and returned 
to a one-horse republic. Spain has seen violent 



52 WHY IS IT? 

changes and to-day hangs on a slender thread. 
England has changed from the despotism of 
George III until to-day the burden of the govern- 
ment rests on ministers, representatives of the 
people, and a House of Commons equal to the 
House of Lords ; and our sister, Brazil, is now 
passing through like convulsions. 

But while these nations have been revolution- 
izing and passing from one sinking vessel to 
another this American republic, by adding three 
amendments, has Bailed past these leaking and 
sinking vessels, giving help and encouragement 
to them in their distress. But let us not boast; 
it is God that giveth and God that taketh away. 
We are in his hands, and if we sail in intoxicated 
vessels God will not go with us. 

When our Constitution was formed we had a 
population of four millions; to-day we number 
sixty-four millions. To-day the national govern- 
ment alone employs more people than were 
within the nation at its commencement. One 
quarter of all the telegraph lines and one half of 
the total mileage of all the railroads on the 
earth's surface are within our borders. But can 
America safely move on with such speed and 



OUR NATIONAL PROBLEM. 53 

digest this continual inpouring of immigration, 
and wade through this flood of intoxicants, and 
live ? 

It is true that we have been tested. Where 
will we find anywhere in the annals of this globe 
the record of a civil war killing six hundred 
thousand, disabling one million, and costing 
$3,000,000,000, and yet in a few years en- 
tirely obliterate the evil and be healed, and 
generals riding side by side who fought face to 
face? The nation rode the tempest without a 
quiver and came out much purer and stronger 
for its baptism of blood from the fact that a 
great evil was removed from our land ; and this 
was God's way of doing it. But think of the 
sacrifice this nation had to make for supporting 
this sin. And what shall be the sacrifice that this 
nation shall eventually make for supporting this 
adulterated beverage of whisky, that annually 
slays its thousands ? 

^Ve might Americanize and Christianize the 
foreigners that are flooding our land if it were 
not for the curse of whisky, which acts as a 
stimulant to ignorance and all crime. This is 
the last new world that is to be discovered, and 



54 WHY IS IT? 

it seems that God designed it to be the final 
theater on which the highest Christian civiliza- 
tion was to be developed. The deck of the 
Mayflower was the altar to the living God ; 
and from that time on God has been with as. 
He sent one class of people far south and an- 
other class far north, but lie gave this country 
to the Puritans; and as long as we make him 
our God and our leader, and Ilia hand is placed 
firmly on the helm, our vessel of state will safely 
outride the storms, and no longer. So, if the 
Lord be God, then serve him, but if Baal (whis- 
ky), then serve him. 

lie who can say to the storm, " Peace, be 
still!" can safely Bteer US over the wild billows 
or sink us beneath the waves. So the question 
comes, Can we as a peoplo afford to forsake this 
great Captain of our vessel and serve Baal? 
Can we afford to legalize by law a curse in our 
midst that feeds the dens of iniquity, that brings 
to our ears the groans of the dying, that covers 
our land with idleness and poverty, that fills our 
jails and almshouses, that sends an army of 
six hundred thousand annually to adrunkard's 
grave ? 



OUR NATIONAL PROBLEM. 55 

Can we afford to forsake the God of our fa- 
thers and see this ship of state go down to rise 
no more, or to have another baptism of blood to 
purge us from the sins of intemperance and in- 
difference ? Shall this great American republic 
sail on forever over* smooth waters, or sink be- 
neath the waves of rum ? 

The stability and greatness of our future 
will depend largely on our faithfulness to the 
present. 

America is plastic to-day, but is speedily crys- 
tallizing into permanent mold. 

We should work quickly, speedily, and accu- 
rately. This is our critical time, our infancy 
and youth — an age on ages telling. One zeal- 
ous, wide-awake man to-day is worth ten to- 
morrow. He who molds to-day sends his im- 
press far down the corridors of time. 

The future of this government above every 
other rests preeminently on the moral excel- 
lency of the people. 

Every man here is a king, hence our pros- 
perity depends upon the character of each 
citizen of this government. What prosperity 
could we expect from a nation of drunkards ? 



56 WHY IS IT? 

Water will not and cannot rise above its level. 
The purity and stability of our government can- 
not, therefore, rise above that of the people who 
compose it. 

The great agencies for elevating the character 
of the people and educating the public mind 
and morals are the Church, the press, and the 
public schools. 

These agencies are mighty forces to wide- 
spread among the masses intelligence, patriot- 
ism, and Christianity. Our free schools, public 
libraries, free lectures, and free press are grand 
agencies to elevate the general intelligence of 
the masses and to expose and countermand the 
ruinous influence of the rum traffic. Among 
these agencies the press is very prominent. 
But it is true the privilege of the press is some- 
times abused. 

In our political campaigns the free press has 
frequently been a national disgrace. The best 
and leading men of our country have been most 
shamefully slandered by the opposite political 
party purely for political purposes, without any 
regard to justice. This is more of a disgrace to 
the press, and also to our government, than it is 



OUR NATIONAL PROBLEM oj 

to those for whom it is intended. This is not 
patriotism, this is not intelligence, this is not 
Christianity. 

Nevertheless a free press is a great blessing 
to our country. It throws the electric light of 
publicity upon our daily conduct and is the 
greatest protection of our homes and morals. 
It is true that the press can be and has been to 
a certain extent reached and controlled by money 
in the interest of politicians and the whisky 
traffic. This scrupulous money king is one of 
our greatest enemies to good government and in 
suppressing the evils of intemperance. 

It is said in Europe, and sometimes acknowl- 
edged at home, that our model government is a 
failure. There is to-day, and especially in our 
large cities, as clearly defined a ruling class as in 
the most aristocratic countries in the Old ^Vorld. 
Its members carry elections in their pockets, 
make up the list for nominating conventions, 
distribute offices as they bargain together, and, 
though they toil not, they wear the best rai- 
ments and find money to spend lavishly. They 
seem to be men of power, whose favor the am- 
bitious court and whose vengeance thev avoid. 4 



58 WHY IS JTf 

And who are these men? Are they the wise, 
the God-fearing, the learned — men who have 
earned important positions by their wisdom and 
virtue, and deserve the confidence of their fel- 
low-citizens by the usefulness and purity of their 
lives, the splendor of their talents, and their deep 
study of the problems of government? No ; 
perhaps they are saloon-keepers, pugilists, gam- 
blers, or worse, buying and selling votes, offices, 
and official acts ! 

"Why, such has become the corruption and 
trickery in politics that holding a municipal 
office almost impeaches a man's character from 
the fact that known integrity and sobriety inca- 
pacitates a man from an office in the gift of the 
city rabble. 

And thus it is that popular government is de- 
generating into government by bosses. It is 
true that those who rule you do not do it by 
means of standing armies, with drawn swords, 
but they do it through political intrigue and 
men armed with voting papers, who obey the 
wwd of command as loyally as did the dependents 
of the old feudal nobels, enabling their leaders 
t to override the general will of the people. 



OUR NATIONAL PROBLEM. 59 

As a rule tlie large cities are the most corrupt 
and the worst governed. We must therefore in- 
fer that without a reformation, as our cities grow, 
and the whisky power gains strength, the gov- 
ernment will become more corrupt and money 
and whisky rule. Money corrupts the morals 
in many ways. Sunday amusements, horse rac- 
ing, baseball, theaters, beer gardens, railroad 
excursions, and drinking dens are all provided, 
because there is money in them. Licentious lit- 
erature and worse than useless novels flood the 
land, poisoning the minds of the young and pol- 
luting their lives, because there is money in them. 
Gambling flourishes because there is money in 
it ; and that great abomination of desolation, 
that triumph of STLtan, that more than ten Egyp- 
tian plagues in one — the liquor traffic — grows 
and thrives at the expense of every human and na- 
tional interest, because there is big money in it. 
Money secures offices and enacts laws regardless 
of virtue and public interest ; and thus it is that 
the whisky traffic is supported, that drunkenness, 
debauchery, poverty, and murder are abroad in 
the land. 

Yet this wrong use of money on the part of 



60 WHY IS IT? 

the unscrupulous should by no means condemn 
money, for when in proper hands and rightly 
used it is a great blessing, and this blessing has 
been wonderfully showered upon us by a divine 
Providence, who will certainly hold us responsi- 
ble for our stewardship. We can scarcely real- 
ize the fact that this youngest of nations is the 
richest, and that this youngest and richest of na- 
tions has only begun to live and develop its re- 
sources. Our total assessed valuation in 1880 
was 1 10,002,993,543, and in 1S90 it was 
$24,249,589,804. Such national progress is 
without a parallel in history. Now, at this rate 
of increase and prosperity we will soon be able 
to buy out all Europe, her lands, her mines, her 
cities and palaces, ships, flocks, money, and 
thrones. But if we wish our chariot wheels of 
progress to continue with such amazing grandeur 
our money power must become Christianized. 
Our nation will not become the kingdom of the 
Lord until the kingdom of rum is subdued. 
While our population increased thirty per cent 
the number of criminals in the United States 
has increased eighty per cent. This looks very 
much as if we were drifting into a dead-line of 



OUR NATIONAL PROBLEM. 61 

vice. Wealth, intemperance, socialism, Mormon- 
ism, immigration, and crime are all increasing 
more rapidly than the population. Are public 
morals thus likely to improve ? There is reason 
to believe that this rate of increase will be sus- 
tained for years to come, and if so, without a 
corresponding increase in moral growth the dan- 
ger from Mormonism, luxuriousness, and the 
conquest of wealth and the rum traffic will be a 
constantly increasing peril. The vastness of our 
territory, the growth of our cities, and the splen- 
dor of our riches may dazzle and astonish the 
world ; but let us not forget that in God only is 
our safety. History declares to us in the ruins 
of Babylon, Thebes, Carthage, and Rome that 
wealth has no conservative power — that it tends 
to enervate and corrupt. Our wonderful mate- 
rial prosperity, which is a marvel to other na- 
tions and the boast of our own, may hide a 
worm-eaten and decaying core. 

The establishing of saloons in our country by 
law is right or it is wrong ; there are no middle 
grounds. Why is it necessary to apply to our 
courts for license before engaging in the whisky 
traffic % and why not necessary before engaging 



62 WHY IS IT? 

in the mercantile business? Because the first is 
an unnecessary evil fraught with dangers, the 
second is a necessary and legitimate business. 
Who, then, carries the responsibility of this un- 
necessary evil ? 

That which is morally wrong can never be 
made politically right by any people. Our laws 
should make it easy for people to do right, and 
difficult for them to do wrong; but the traffic 
of whisky is vice versa. It is like the Irishman 
who, in saddling his master's horse, placed the 
saddle with the front behind, and when his mas- 
ter told him that he could not ride backward, 
said, " Be gory, Pll put the bridle on the 
other end.'' And so with the whisky traffic, the 
law has the bridle on the wrong end. 

High or low license, the mill grinds on just the 
same, and the never-ending grist of humanity, 
with its capabilities for good and immortal souls 
to save, goes into the hopper, and out comes the 
horrible product of lunatics, paupers, and crim- 
inals, and the wail of the widows, the cry of the 
starved and suffering children go up to heaven, 
while the land is cursed and our courts and pris- 
ons are filled. We may say that the giant is blind 



OUR NATIONAL PROBLEM. 63 

and in prison grinding, and that we intend to 
keep him there chained by the sham of high and 
low license ; but his locks are growing, his 
strength increasing, his hands are upon the pil- 
lars of our government and threaten our de- 
struction, and we should make haste to defeat 
him and cast him into outer darkness. 

Under the protection of high and low license 
this enemy of God and man has marshaled his 
forces of demijohns, decanters, and capital until 
he has become a formidable power in the land 
for evil and has already reaped a plentiful harvest 
of money and souls, not only here, but across 
the ocean. The ground has been made hollow 
under England, Ireland, Scotland, and America 
with the catacombs of slaughtered drunkards. 

Now the question comes to us, Is the future 
of our country worth protecting against this 
great evil, this archangel of perdition who has 
his filthy claws clutched into the bleeding heart- 
strings of the nation with one wins: on the shores 
of the Atlantic and the other on the Pacific, 
while the country cries, u Iiow long, O Lord, 
how long must we groan under this national 



64 WRY IS IT? 

Benedict Arnold, the traitor, who attempted 
to betray his country, was a rumseller and a 
drunkard. Three of the most important defeats 
of the American army during the Revolution 
were sustained by men who died drunkards. 
Had a sober crew been on board the C/tesaj)eake 
the brave Lawrence would never have had to say 
to his men, " Don't give up the ship ! " 

When we think of the extent of this evil, the 
burden of crime throughout the land, of the 
loss of human life, the destruction of families, 
the depravity of intellect, and the precious souls 
that find their way down the dark road to hell 
through this traffic of whisky, we should trem- 
ble for the honor and safety of our country, and 
especially when we reflect that God's justice 
cannot sleep forever. 

Let us therefore support that freedom that 
will make us free indeed, that freedom that will 
raise an empire of immortal beings from the 
kingdom of rum to the true dignity of virtuous 
freemen, that will fill up time with social com- 
forts, that will gild the close of life with conso- 
lation and crown our nation with imperishable 
happiness. Let us say to the Church and to 



OUR NATIONAL PROBLEM. 65 

those who are on the side of humanity and 
Christianity, " Come, gird on the armor and 
march forth into this field of labor ; there is 
plenty to do.*' As the colonel said to the cap- 
tain, " Go right in anywhere, it is good fighting 
all along the line." 

Permit me to ask, Is there any necessity to 

license men anywhere to sell this adulterated 

«/ 

beverage to their fellow-beings? 

Is it not an acknowledged fact that the traffic 
is purely to make money at the sacrifice of fam- 
ilies, manhood, intellect, and soul? And can it 
be possible that an enlightened Christian peo- 
ple would support such a national curse by law 
to enable a few to amass money at such an enor- 
mous sacrifice of happiness, intellect, and soul ? 
And what an injustice to set up and support 
such a monopoly by law in a free country ! 
Pray, tell me, has not every law-abiding citizen 
an equal right to engage in a legitimate business ? 
And if this is a lawful and necessary business 
then why not license all who may desire to enter 
into the business, as in any other legitimate and 
honorable business in life ? 

When license time comes around how amusing 
5 



66 WHY IS IT? 

to see the excitement, the legal talent employed, 
and the struggle to know who shall and who 
shall not monopolize this traffic and receive au- 
thority from our courts of justice to manufac- 
ture idiots, to reduce families to poverty, to endan- 
ger our government, and to send souls to hell ! 
So the question presents itself, Does not the sys- 
tem within itself condemn itself 1 And does 
not the system condemn the nation or people 
who supports it by law? And Is not Mich a 
nation like worm-eaten fruit, rotten at the core 
and destined to destruction? And has not the 
proclamation long since gone forth in that great 
Book of books ? 

And if God is against us who can be for u> I 



OUR PROGRESS AXD OUR SIX. 67 



CHAPTER III. 

OUR PROGRESS AXD OUR SIX. 

If we can excite the curiosity, and thus arouse 
the mind to thought, the eve to observation, and 
the soul to God, we may accomplish a great end. 
To illustrate, a certain young man, while stand- 
ing on the verge of skepticism, once picked 
up a small stone, and in it he found a perfect 
animal formation. His curiosity became excited, 
and was never satisfied until he studied the sci- 
ence of geology, compared its teachings with 
those of the Bible, and found a perfect harmony 
between word and works of God, and became a 
confirmed believer. 

As we are carried across this continent, over and 
through our mountains and across our valleys, at 
the rate of forty miles an hour on cushioned seats, 
we do not realize the danger facing us at every 
revolution of the car- wheels. As our nation 
moves forward with such wonderful strides of 
progress we fail to look ahead for coming perils. 



68 WHY IS IT? 

We are living in extraordinary times. Truly 
in an age on ages telling. The press, electricity, 
and steam have almost annihilated space and 
transformed this earth into an audience room. 
And while the mysteries of Africa are being laid 
open and the dry bones of Asia are moving, 
America, with her wealth, her institutions of 
learning, and banner of liberty, is leading the 
world. 

The reports of our national wealth and prog- 
ress in other countries are on so large a Bcale 
that it requires all of Europe to believe one of 
them; and these years in which we are living, 
of peace, prosperity, and progress, are but the 
pivot on which is turning our national future. 
But no generation appreciates its own place and 
opportunities in history. 

Comparison sometimes enables us to see thi 
in their proper light, and the best way for us 
see what God has done and is doing for us as a 
people is to compare our nation with the other 
civilized nations of the world ; and the best way, 
perhaps, for us to guard against national perils 
is to compare the downfall of the past nations 
of the world with their history, and thus take heed. 






OUR PROGRESS AXD OUR SIX. 69 

The Jewish nation is the best example we have. 
When they feared God they prospered ; when 
they served Baal they fell and lost all their 
glory. 

We possess many advantages over thp Euro- 
pean nations ; they are continually threatened 
with war ; their fleets and armies cost them an- 
nually about $900,000,000, and, while the peo- 
ple are burdened with tax, their debt is annually 
increasing. Our standing armies cost us com- 
paratively nothing ; our wealth from 1870 to 
18S0 increased at the rate of 8260,000 an 
hour ; from 1880 to 1890 it increased from 
$16,902,993,543 to $24,249,589,804, which is 
without a parallel in the history of nations, and 
yet w 7 e have only commenced to develop our 
resources. 

On an average the European nations, except 
Russia, are but a little larger than each of our 
States and Territories. Now, suppose those 
nineteen European nations were united under 
one government, having one language, one cur- 
rency, and one common interest, with the re- 
sources that we as a nation possess, what a 
mighty nation it would be ! Well, we are com- 



70 WHY IS IT? 

posed of forty-four nations, so to speak, and 
soon to be increased to many more from our rich 
Territories, with no conflicting interest, hut one 
in language, one in currency, and one in a com- 
mon interest, with a treasury full and overflow- 
ing. Certainly we have a reason to thank God 
for such prosperity, and certainly we should ho a 
God-fearing people ; and certainly it would he a 
terrible calamity if such a nation, with such 
blessings and future hopes, would become cor- 
rupted in God's sight by King Alcohol or any 
other national curse, and crumble to pieces as the 
past nations of the earth have done; and will 
not a little reflection toll us that there is dan- 
ger ? For more than three thousand years, step 
by step, have population and civilization been 
moving westward, and Btep by step has the 
world's scepter passed from Persia and Egypt 
to Greece, Italy, and Great Britain, and finally 
leaped across the Atlantic into this great west- 
ern world to remain, as there is no farther West 
Like the star in the east which guided the wise 
men with their treasures, so the star of empire, 
rising in the east, has ever heckoned the wealth 
and power of nations westward, until to-day it 



OUR PROGRESS AND OUR SIX. 71 

stands over this young America, this nation of 
nations, and, Benjamin-like, God has given us a 
fivefold portion, and the nations of the earth 
are bringing their offerings and laying them at 
our feet and exclaiming, " All hail, thou giant of 
infant nations, thou young America ! " 

Most certainly God has placed us upon the 
pyramid top of opportunities, from which we 
can remodel and bless the nations of the world 
and mold the destinies of unborn millions. But 
will we cast down the high places of Baal, em- 
brace the opportunities, and use aright the great 
blessings that God has so bountifully bestowed 
upon us ? Alone upon our intelligence and virtues 
depends our future. We are told that the right- 
eous shall inherit the earth. 

Our wealth as a nation and our opportunities 
for good will never be told. 

What has God and our forefathers bestowed 
upon us? Think of our onward march to great- 
ness, of our mountains laden with wealth, of the 
fertile plains and valleys that lie stretched out 
before us yet untouched, of the inexhaustible 
deposits of oil, coal, and gas to heat and light our 
homes and cities, and of the mighty oceans that 



72 WHY IS IT? 

wash our shores on either side, on whose bosom 
are borne to us the wealth of the world. But 
think of the evils that menace our country, and 
where is the remedy ? 

The best preventive for social discontent, 
dynamite bombs, Mormonism, and that great- 
est of national curses, intemperance, is Chris- 
tianity. 

It has been truthfully said that one of the 
most important steps to a permanent reforma- 
tion is to commence with the children of a gen- 
eration. This is a work that depends upon the 
public schools, the Church, and the Sabbath 
schools of our country ; and we cannot too highly 
appreciate the great Sabbath institutions of this 
country. AVe have in the United States a Sab- 
bath school army of 9,700,000, and while all 
alom>; the lines thousands of faithful laborers are 
stepping out of the ranks and passing up to that 
school above, where the gates stand ajar, yet 
thousands more are stepping in all along the 
line to swell the number. 

This indeed is encouraging, and with the 
spirit of Christ we should push on through 
forest, over mountains, and across streams of dif- 






OUR PROGRESS AND OUR SIN. 73 

ficulty, and the heavens will rejoice, the earth 
be glad, and even the hills, as it were, will be in 
a glee of sympathy over our success. 

But while this is encouraging, yet let us look 
at the facts as they are before ns, and then ask, 
"What shall be the future of our country?" 
We have a population of 64,000,000, and 
9,700,000 of this number are in the Sabbath 
schools, 22,000,000 in the Christian Churches, in- 
cluding the Sabbath school army. As most of 
the active members of Christian Churches are 
in the Sabbath work we can conclude that many 
of the 22,000,000 Christian members are inact- 
ive, which scarcely leaves us this number on 
the side of morality and Christ ; but say it does, 
we have arrayed against us, in this land of Bi- 
bles, an army of 42,000,000 ; and what for ? To 
be schooled by a licensed curse, to encourage law- 
lessness, anarchism, Mormonism, social discontent, 
and to patronize the whisky gambling dens of 
our country, and to feed the great sewers through 
which our ruined humanity go down to hell. 
O, my reader, what a sad picture in this God- 
blessed and Bible land ! Well may we exclaim, 
" The harvest is great, but the laborers are few." 



74 WHY IS IT? 

To subdue this great army we must bring 
up and educate the rising age against this li- 
censed curse and free it from bad influences and 
habits. If this be done, what a mighty reforma- 
tion would soon take place in this country of 
ours! The floodgates of wickedness, intemper- 
ance, deceit, profanity, and crime would soon be 
closed, and si roams of love, joy, peace, and pros- 
perity would soon refresh this (\vy and thirsty 
land, and this nation would prove to be what 
God designed it — the bright and morning star of 
the world. 

We are told that u Many that are first shall be 
List, and the last shall be first." In the lands 
where the glad news of the Gospel was first 
preached the people are the last to receive it. 
From this new and then unknown continent we 
are now sending these glad tidings of salvation 
to those dark and benighted minds. 

This New World seems to have been designed 
by Providence to be the great and model nation 
of the world. We have been first in freedom, 
first in progress, and first to-day in wealth and 
influence among the nations of the world. God 
has been with us and blessed us all through our 



OUR PROGRESS AND OUR SIN 75 

national history. In our infancy and poverty, 
and in our struggles for freedom with a mighty 
foe, God has fought our battles, and with a 
strong arm hath he delivered us. He hath also 
borne with our national infirmities, and after 
chastisement hath purged us from the curse of 
slavery and made of us a great people. And 
shall we be so unmindful of past and present 
blessings, and of our duty to that great King in 
whose hands are the destinies of all nations, as to 
support by law a curse in our land that is daily 
and hourly accumulating sins like mountains be- 
fore us ? 

Living, as we do, under the very shadow of 
schools and churches, ignorance is a crime, as it 
is the fruitful soil of vice, and disqualifies us for 
the duties of life, and duties, too, that we can- 
not gainsay. 

God has not placed us here to eat, drink, sleep, 
and revel, and then pass away as do the brutes, 
without hope ; nor has he designed that we 
shall be carried to heaven " on flowery beds of 
ease." 

Every member of society is exerting an in- 
fluence around him for good or for bad that will 



76 WHY IS IT ? 

reverberate through time and extend away on 
into eternity. Reader, do you realize this i 

If ever an era in the history of the American 
nation required great efforts and noble deeds 
that era is to-day America has become the po- 
litical life of the world. Sciences are born in a 
day and leap with a single bound to maturity. 

The poor and oppressed of other lands are 
seeking homes under our flag. The bosom of 
the ocean is spotted with vessels bringing them 
to our shores ; and while some are a blessing to us 
intellectually, morally, and financially yet, many 
more are of a low and ignorant class, supporters 
of intemperance, anarchy, and social discontent; 
so that in the midst of our national growth, ac- 
tivities, and progress dangers confront US on all 
sides, and every good citizen is called upon to aid 
in promoting the purity and perpetuity of this 
great government and in removing from our 
homes and land this greatest of national curses — 
the whisky traffic, that which feeds all other 
vices. 

When we turn to the past history of nations 
we find that sin and corruption have dissolved 
the greatest powers of the world like tow at the 



OUR PROGRESS AND OUR SIX. 77 

touch of fire; and shall we as a nation, having 
the light of the Gospel in our midst, and having 
the history of the past before us, and having 
the opportunities for good that we possess, be 
blind and indifferent to our future destiny I 
Having eyes can we not see ? and having ears 
can we not hear ? 

We had a new chapter added to our history, 
beginning with 1861, and although we turned 
one new leaf we still have another to turn. We 
have yet a class of slaves and a hard taskmas- 
ter in our midst, which to-day is sapping the 
nation's blood ; if continued it will not require a 
Daniel to interpret the handwriting on the wall. 

It is a common saying that " this is a funny 
world," and it is. It is like the young man who 
got drunk, and, wishing to conceal it, went 
upstairs to hide, but at the head of the stairs 
fell and rolled all the way down a high stairway. 
The racket brought several persons to his aid, 
but he said to them in an angry tone, " Go 
away, I don't want your help ; that is the way I 
always come down stairs." 

Well, this is the way the nations of the past 
came down stairs, and it is the way that we as a 



78 WHY IS IT? 

nation, with all our opportunities and greatness, 
will eventually come down if we fail to keep 
the fear of God before our eyes. 

To a very great extent this world is what we 
make it ; it is as full of beauty as the world above, 
and if man should do his duty it would be a 
world of love. Proper and judicious habits in 
life are to us prosperity, happiness, and peace, 
and in the world to conic eternal life. Improper 
and evil habits arc tyrants, and those given to 
them have not the habits alone, but the habits 
have them, and their tyranny holds many, yea, 
thousands of men of strong and noble minds in 
their pernicious grasp. 

Habit, therefore, can raise us to an alliance 
with angels, and through grace we can be per- 
mitted to converse with God himself; or it 
can sink us down to the lowest depths of degra- 
dation and cause us to be the most dangerous 
and corrupt of all God's creatures. 

Our first great object in life, therefore, should 
be to cultivate in ourselves and in the minds of 
the rising age a true ideal of life and let it 
hover before us like a bow in the distant cloud, 
luring us onward and upward, keeping our gaze 



OUR PROGRESS AND OUR SIN. 79 

aloft, and it will be like the morning star of 
Bethlehem, guiding us in the path of temperance 
and virtue and to the shrine of heavenly purity 
and celestial wisdom. 

Of all evil habits that of intemperance, per- 
haps, is the most formidable, for it is a destruct- 
ive beetle that feeds upon the vitality, the activ- 
ity, the hopes, and the prospects of the soul. 

It is said that of all the ways that lead to hell 
in which the feet of deluded mortals tread that 
of intemperance is the most dreary and terrific. 
It curtains the heavens in darkness and carpets 
the earth with sackcloth. 

Well may we exclaim, " O liquor, thou de- 
mon traffic, how many earthly Edens hast 
thou made desolate? How many starved and 
naked orphans hast thou cast upon the cold 
charities of an unfriendly world ? How many 
untimely graves hast thou filled ? What sad 
wreck hast thou made of brilliant talents and 
splendid genius? O thou mighty transformer 
of intellect and generous-hearted man into all that 
is brutal! Would to God that the gates were 
closed, the tide arrested, and that destructive 
traffic, with all its attendant evils, cease to flood 



80 WET IS IT? 

our glorious land of liberty! Then prosperity 
and happiness would be ours, virtue would 
grow with knowledge, the cause of Christ would 
be advanced, thousands of barefooted orphans 
and broken-hearted wives would chant praises to 
Heaven. Eden would again appear, the lost be 
reclaimed, the bleeding and wounded hearts be 
healed, temperance and virtue would reign; and 
then, and then only, would this in truth be the 
land of they're* and the home of the bravOj 
and the model nation of the world" 

We as American people boast of our freedom ; 
and well we may, for with a great price we ob- 
tained it. We have cot possessed it very long. 
We can almost go back yet and find the 
bloody tracks of our fathers as they marched 
with their bare feet over the frozen ground in 
defense of- our country. We still miss those in 
the family circle who so recently gave their 
lives to maintain the honor of our flag. As wc 
think of them and wipe the lingering tear-drops 
from our eyes we imagine we can hear their 
familiar voices and see their pleasant faces and 
almost hear their dying groans. 

We have our cripples still with us as living 






OUR PROGRESS AXD OUR SIX. SI 

witnesses ; and shall we not appreciate, love, and 
cherish a country and a freedom that cost so 
much ? TTe feel as if all the powers of Europe 
could not get it from our embrace. Our shores 
would shake into the depths of. the sea the invader 
who would presume to seek it. And yet it can- 
not be denied but that our country is enslaved. 
Our fellow-citizens are groaning under a great 
desolating bondage. Thousands are annually 
slain and tens of thousands are carried away into 
a loathsome slavery of intemperance, to be trod- 
den down under its mighty burdens. This slav- 
ery is a hard taskmaster ; it most shamefully 
exposes us, it demands of us our health and our 
money, and rewards us with poverty and dis- 
grace ; it deprives us of our liberty of thought 
and conscience ; it destroys our happiness in this 
life and robs us of the hope of that blessed im- 
mortality which lies beyond the shores of time. 
It also lays hold upon the very vitality of our 
government and enthrones itself in high places ; 
and is it not the very height of absurdity that 
we should legalize such an evil bv law and fos- 
ter it in our bosoms ? 

As a rule the drunkard whom you behold tot- 
6 



82 WHY IS IT? 

tering about the streets is preparing a bill of ex- 
pense for you to pay, and in some indirect way 
will soon be putting his hands down into your 
pockets, or perhaps be eating his bread in the 
sweat of your brow in place of his own, and you 
never have a word of complaint; but, on the 
other hand, if a respectable citizen would attempt 
to levy a tax on you for his support you would 
soon rebel and hunt him from from society. Bat 
the drunkard can do it, and the law turns in and 
assists him, and you look on with calm submis- 
sion. Should this evil continue to advance in our 
land the right of suffrage, which is the main- 
spring of our liberties, will soon become the en- 
gine of self-destruction. Think for one moment. 
When the annual liquor bill of the nation is 
$900,00O,(MM), and when a saloon power con- 
trols a capital of $1,000,000,000 and compels 
our politicians to court its support for office, it 
is time to wake up and see where we as a nation 
are drifting to. 

Where now is the city, town, or village where 
whisky is sold in which the laws are not 
openly violated and the Sabbath day desecrated I 
and where is the magistrate who dares to carry 



OUR PROGRESS AND OUR SIX. 83 

into effect the laws against the vending; cr drink- 
CD o 

ing of ardent spirits ? Here, then, is already a 
power in the land that makes a vital stab at civil 
liberty. Here are the troops of a future Caesar 
by whom our liberties are ultimately to be de- 
stroyed if continued. 

The fires of corruption, kindled by the adul- 
terated traffic of whisky, are, underneath us, and 
the smoke and perfumes are ascending to heaven 
for a testimony against us, the flames are burst- 
ing out around us, and if not extinguished we are 
undone, our sun will set in darkness and de- 
spair, as did that of once proud Rome. Should 
we remain indifferent toward this growing 
evil ? 

Is drunkenness intended to promote national 
health and wealth ? Is it a blessing to any 
community ? Does it prepare immortal souls 
for eternity? Does it make families and homes 
happy and prosperous ? We have read of the 
middle passage in the transportation of slaves, 
the chains, the darkness, the stench, the mortal- 
ity, yea, the living madness of woe ; but turn to 
intemperance, and in this nation we find a mid- 
dle passage of slavery, darkness and chains, 



84 WHY IS IT? 

disease and death — not from Africa to America, 
but from time to eternity; not of slaves whom 
deatli will release, but slaves in time and slaves 
in eternity. 

It lias been said that could all the sighs and 
groans of the slaves be wafted on one bre< 
they would he as thunder convulsing the earth ; 
and could all their tears be assembled they 
would be as a mighty river flowing into the 
ocean of endless sorrow. 

How can we as a, nation expect the blessings 
of God to go with us and enjoy peace and pros- 
perity except we become a righteous and virtu- 
ous people, and where is our dependence for 
safety, prosperity, and success if an almighty 
arm is engaged against us? Xo matter what 
high and important position a man may occupy 
in life, no matter how wealthy, how learned, 
how prominent, if he becomes a drunkard all 
are lost, as it is a sure road to destruction. 

And so with a nation, when drunkenness be- 
comes enthroned in high and low places, and 
when she places in the hands of her subjects 
authority to sell to their fellow-beings that which 
destroys both soul and body and establishes a 






OUR PROGRESS AXD OUR SIX. 85 

system of drunken revelry, either a reformation 
or her end is near. 

We may boast of being the land of the free, 
of our wealth, our mountains of iron and coal, 
silver and gold, of our broad and productive 
acres stretching from ocean to ocean, of our in- 
stitutions of learning and American progress, 
but if a divine Providence is against us all are 
lost. As we have said, the greatest powers of 
the world have dissolved like tow at the touch 
of fire. The giants of Anak and the mighty 
walls of Jericho, which disheartened the spies 
that Moses sent out, could not protect the people 
in their sins when Israel went out against them. 
History tells us that Babylon, that great and 
famous city of antiquity, with its ponderous 
walls 338 feet high, 85 feet thick, studded with 
towers and pierced with brazen gates, which 
with its palaces and hanging gardens was among 
the great wonders of the world, and which 
seemed to defy all the powers of the world 
against invasion, fell in an unexpected hour, 
right in the midst of its drunken revelry and 
corruption, because the cup of God's wrath was 
full. And O how great must have been the sur- 



86 WHY IS IT? 

prise of that hour. While the silver and golden 
vessels from Jerusalem were being lilled with 
wine, the gods of gold were being praised, the 
night spent in singing obscene songs, in dancing, 
in drunken hiccoughs, in idiotic laughter, and 
while in the banquet hall could be heard shouts 
of, "O King Belshazzar, live fotever," there 
was something appeared on the wall. What is 
it? Is it a spirit ! Is it a phantom t Is it a god ( 
The music stopped, the golden goblets foil from 
the grasp, there were a thousand shrieks of 
horror; the wise men were sent for, and finally 
a Daniel was found, who came into the midst of 
that drunken revelry and read, " God hath num- 
bered thy kingdom and finished it. Thou art 
weighed in the balance and art found wanting.'' 
And what followed t That night human 
blood flowed in place of wine, and dying groans 
were the music, and Babylon the great fell. 
Thus it is that sin may open as bright as the morn- 
ing and as lovely as the rose, apparently, but it 
will close as dark as night and dreadful as hell. 
At trumpet's call throngs of wretched men — 
captives, slaves, or convicts — and wild beasts 
closed in deadly strife for the public amuse- 



OUR PROGRESS AXD OUR SIX. 87 

ment of Rome, "who was so long the master of 
the world ; but in the midst of drunken revelry 
and wicked combats of gladiators her sun set, 
and Home passed into the hands of barbarians, to 
live no more forever. The great truth that all 
men are born free and equal was one of the 
corner stones upon which our Declaration of In- 
dependence was based, and jet for eighty-six 
years after that declaration we as a nation held hu- 
man beings in chains and ignorance. And it was 
not until the wrath of God had kindled against us, 
and the terrific storm burst in fury over our heads 
and our land was drenched with human blood 
and the very foundation of our civil liberties 
trembled, that we were willing to remove the 
curse from our midst. And shall we as a nation 
still continue to rock in the cradle of protection 
that monster intemperance, one of the most 
prominent national curses of this or any other 
nation — a curse that walks our national halls and 
takes its seat in Congress ; a curse that controls 
our legislative bodies and our courts of justice ; 
a curse that covers our land with idleness and 
poverty, disgrace and crime ; a traffic which 
fills our jails, supports our almshouses, and fur- 



88 WHY IS IT? 

nishes subjcts for tlie silent tomb ; a traffic that 
is the life-blood of the gambler, the support of 
the midnight incendiary and assassin, and the 
companion of the murderer ; a traffic that es- 
teems the blasphemer, hates love, scorns virtue, 
slanders the innocent, and sends the immortal 
soul down to eternal ruin I 

If God heard the erics and groans and saw 
the degradation of those held in chains and ig- 
norance, will lie not see and hear the sinsof that 
traffic which has polluted our national halls, dis- 
honored our statesmen, and entailed misery Upon 
millions of the sons of America ,? And vet shall 
we as a nation continue to protect it by lawl 
What ! Protect by law a curse that renders us 
no compensation but poverty and want, suffering 
and death I What ! Insult our nation by Bay- 
ing that it protects by law a curse that is hourly 
marching a vast army of slaves through the 
gates of death down to hell ? 

"But," says one, " license or no license, men 
will drink, and a refusal will not prohibit drunk- 
enness." Now, perhaps this is the devil's best 
argument; and why should he not support this 
traffic, which is the best agency lie has in the 



OUR PROGRESS AXD OUR SIX 89 

world to accomplish his fiendish work ? It is 
like the three men who went out in cahoot to 
hunt and shoot fine squirrels. The first took the 
two largest, the second the three smaller, and told 
the third man he should have the cahoot. And 
so with the devil ; he takes the game and gives 
the poor drunkard the cahoot. 

But look at this argument. We have a law 
against committing crime, Sabbath-breaking, lar- 
ceny, murder, etc., yet those crimes are com- 
mitted, to a certain extent, all over the country ; 
but will this argue that the law should be re- 
versed and made to protect crime ? Is not the 
law a great check to crime ? and would not the 
same thing be true in regard to this adulterated 
traffic of whisky ? Why not just as well set up 
licensed houses throughout the countiy to com- 
mit crime, and thus at once convert this beauti- 
ful, flowery, though rock-built earth of ours into 
the kingdom of darkness ? 

A government is responsible for the sins it 
supports by law, aud the day of reckoning will 
come ; and if God is against us who can be for us ? 

O that it could be written, as with a poniard, 
upon the hearts and memories of the youth, 



90 WHY IS IT? 

and also the aged, the important and dreadful 
fact that the price of intemperance is death — 
that vice costs more than virtue and drunken- 
ness more than sobriety. O that we, as a nation, 
could realize the fact that this traffic endangers 
our government, degrades our citizens, dishonors 
our statesmen ; that it brings shame, not honor, 
terror, not safety, misery, not happiness, upon a 
people, and calmly surveys its frightful desola- 
tion ; that it is the stepping-stone that leads our 
promising youths to eternal ruin, who would 
otherwise be useful members in society, pillars 
in the Church, or perhaps statesmen standing 
upon the giddy pinnacles of national fame. Let 
us appeal to those who love the cause of liberty 
and humanity and to those who feel an interest 
in the future welfare of our children and coun- 
try, and let us appeal to the Church and to those 
who love the cause of Christ, to lend a voice and 
a helping hand to promote the cause of God 
and temperance and loose the chains of slavery 
that bind so many of our otherwise good citi- 
zens in poverty and disgrace, slaves to King Al- 
cohol, and hasten the time when all, from the 
crystal sands of the Atlantic to the golden gates 



OUR PROGRESS AND OUR SIX. 91 

of the West, who live under the glorious flag of 
liberty shall be free indeed ; for the greatest 
slave and the most wretched of all human be- 
ings is he who has practiced this vice so long that 
he curses it and still clings to it, knowing, when 
putting it to his lips, that it will gnaw his heart 
and make him roll himself with anguish and de- 
spair in the dust with the swine, and yet will 
say, " Give me, give me one glass more ! " 
The lifeless form of a no doubt once promising 
young man is this moment before me. On a 
cold winter's night, when the earth was mantled 
with snow, through whisky he spent the night 
in water, brush, and snow ; and while thus worse 
than brutalized he became perfectly nude, and 
toward morning made his bed in the snow, 
brush his covering and suffering untold his pil- 
low ; and there, as the sun was appearing from 
behind the eastern hills, with his naked and 
frozen body all scarred and bleeding, he was 
found just before he closed his eyes to open them 
in that long eternity ; and O what a scene it was 
to look upon ! Man, created but a little lower 
than the angels, to be thus enslaved and worse 
than brutalized by King Alcohol ! 



92 WHY IS IT? 

Man is God's noblest work ; he walks erect 
and lifts his head to the heavens above him ; his 
mind soars forth in endless thought among the 
suns and worlds that display the grandeur, glory, 
and majesty of the God who created him in his 
own image and crowned him lord of creation. 
What breaks his scepter, tears the crown from 
his brow, and sends his soul to hell? O, could 
we call upon the moldering victims to wipe the 
crumbling grave-dust from their brows and stalk 
forth in their tattered shrouds and whitened 
skeletons to testify against this Botd-destroying 
curse ! 

Snap your burning chains, ye denizens of the 
pit, and come up, sheeted in fire and dripping 
with the flames of hell, and with your trumpet 
tongues testify to a dying world against this 
beverage of eternal woe. Could we hoist the 
vail that hides from our view eternity and be- 
hold just for a moment those who have passed 
the portals of death through intemperance, the 
scene there exhibited would wake us up to a 
sense of our duty in this important work. 

Should not every Christian man and woman 
and every good citizen put forth a helping hand 



OUR PROGRESS AND OUR SIN 93 

to remove this great evil from our midst, ai:d 
save this nation from this widespread curse \ 
Or will the Christian Church of this land of 
promise sit on the stool of indifference while 
the world around it is drifting to hell in streams 
of rum and carrying some of its own members 
along down to destruction ? 

Our prayers should be, " O Lord, make us all 
thy repentant, believing, consecrated, and ran- 
somed followers ; then the temptations, hurri- 
canes, and thunderbolts of sin cannot deter us 
from duty. We should glory in having our 
names enrolled as laborers in this great cause of 
temperance, for at her approach the fountain of 
domestic affection sends forth its streams of joy 
and gladness like the sweet music of rippling 
waters among the green vales of home. She 
receives under her holy guardianship the loveli- 
ness of women and the innocence of childhood, 
and they are protected from a sea of evils. In 
her right hand are length of days and in her left 
are riches and honor. 



94 WHY JS IT? 



THE SERMON. 



B Y U B V . DR, K i: YES. 



" Who slew all these?"— % Kings x, 9. 

The story of the whisky power, like the book which 
the prophet Bzekiel saw. Is written within and without 
in lamentations and mourning and woe, and every day 

is adding new pages of shame and new chapters of E 
row to this dark volume of hell. You cannot pick up a 
single newspaper without hearing the clanking of the 
felon's chains or the cry of murder, or Beeing the glare 

of burning homes, or the horrors of the gallows with 
its dangling victims — all, all the work of this whisky 
power. 
On last Wednesday night, about ten o'clock, a man in 

the prime of life, in the most public part of our city, ia 

found bleeding to death, the blood and brains oozing 
from two ghastly wounds in the head. 

"A small revolver lying at his feet." says a newspaper 
paragraph, "was all there was to tell the tale, no one 
being near to see the tragic act." 

A jury of six men, summoned to examine into the 
cause of this horrible episode in our city life, agree in 
finding that this murdered man "came to his death by 
a pistol-shot wound in the head, the pistol held in his 
own hand and its discharge caused by himself." Then 
with a reach of wondrous charity — a record of which 



THE SER3I0X. 95 

the City Council of Parsons ought to carve with immor- 
tal pride in the rocky pavement where the blood of the 
murdered Oscar Swine ford poured out his life — the act- 
ing coroner ordered the firm of Ellis & Thornton — the 
firm that buries paupers and friendless vagabonds at 
public expense — "to give his body a decent burial!'' 
And this is to wind up the story of his taking off and 
hush all curious questions as to " Who killed Oscar 
Swineford? " The jury say, " He came to his deatli by a 
pistol held in his own hand and discharged by himself.*' 
Gentlemen of the jury, permit me to traverse your verdict. 
Did he kill himself? Was he himself when he placed 
that instrument of death to his head and sent its deadly 
ball crashing through his brains? Was he himself? 
"Would he have done that horrible deed, think you, if he 
had been entirely at himself? You don't believe it — not 
one of you believe it. Did you then, gentlemen of the 
jury, like honest men, endeavor to find out the root of 
this matter? Did you seek to find out where the fire 
started that burned to madness and quickened to desper- 
ation this poor, murdered wretch that lay before you, 
with the ghastly wounds looking you in the face? It is 
a principle in law that the perpetrator of a crime and the 
accessory to it are both alike guilty and both alike de- 
serving of punishment. Men have been hanged, and 
justly hanged, on this principle. It applies to all 
crimes, to all violations of the laws of God and the laws 
of the land. "The accessory isalike guilty with the 
principal, and alike deserving of punishment." Who 
were the accessories, the associates, the accomplices in 
this bloody act, on which you have passed your verdict, 
''Died by his own act?" That act was not his own. 
The true self in man is the power of self -consciousness 



96 WHY IS IT 7 

and self-direction. As long as one has neither self-con- 
sciousness nor self-direction he is not himself, and it is 
only when he has the possession of his rational and moral 
faculties that he is in his true, responsible selfhood. 
Thus we say of the man who, in a state of delirium, 
smites to the ground by a deadly blow some dear friend 
and laughs at the ruin he has wrought, that "he is not 
himself 1 ' "and is not to be held criminally responsible 
before the law." He was not himself when he dealt that 
blow, and no law will challenge his act as a crime. The 
understanding had been blasted and turned into the 
darkness of night, the self-directing will had become 
unbalanced or destroyed, and nil sense of responsibility 
blotted from the soul. The man was not himself. 

But suppose now a sane person by some act. or a s 
of acts, brings about this destruction of whatever con- 
stitutes the man's moral and responsible selfhood, and 
does so knowing that he is unfitting that man for all in- 
telligent, moral, and accountable action; that hi 
breaking all the bonds that hold that man in a course of 
safe living; that he is cutting every tie that binds him 
to the social humanities of lite; that he is preparing him 
to become a dangerous monster among men. an incar- 
nate devil, a demon of passion; that he is kindling a 
fire that will laugh at all restraints and burn up e\< iv 
beautiful and tender thing and leave the soul one parched, 
crispy cinder of ruin, capable of any deed of shame or 
blood, his whole nature frenzied and set on fire of hell, 
and that as a result of his act or series of act ions the dag- 
ger will flash in the hands of that man, and then crimson 
in blood, and the bullet will crash and the brain ooze 
from the mangled skull. Tell me, gentlemen of the 
jury, how stands such a man, who lays the train and B 



THE SERMON. 97 

in motion all this enginery of horror? Gentlemen of the 
jury, is he guilty or not guilty? 

How reads your law? If a man sets fire to his grass 
without having duly notified his neighbors, so as to ena- 
ble them to guard against all danger, and that fire 
crosses the bounds of his own acres and carries ruin to 
his neighbors, he shall be deemed guilty of a crime and 
shall suffer the severe penalty of the law. And shall a 
man be permitted to kindle his ruinous fires right in 
the soul of a fellow-man and destroy his moral man- 
hood, and turn him into a fiend, into a thing of horror 
and blood, and yet stand acquitted at the bar of honest, 
unbought sentiment? No ! no ! 

That man, or that set of men who clouded the under- 
standing by their hellish work ; who weakened and un- 
balanced the determining will ; who blotted out the sense 
of right and responsibility; who fired the passions and 
intensified the reckless impulses of the viler nature until 
the man was lost in the brute — in the demon — jind who, 
thus flung out into a wild whirlpool of frenzied, uncon- 
trollable excitement, without thought or care for God or 
man, for heaven or hell, lets go of everything and drops 
quick down into the dark abysmal shades of eternal 
night — whose hands are red with the blood of responsi- 
ble murder before God and before your unbought, un- 
traded, and unmarketable conscience? If I take a heavy 
hammer and strike a man in the region of what the 
phrenologists term the moral organs, stunning his moral 
sense and moral control, and leave only the animal brain 
active and unchecked by the higher sense (supj)ose such 
a thing possible), would you not hold me accountable for 
what might grow out of this moral ruin? You might 
shut that man up in an asylum as one dangerous to so- 
7 



98 WHY IS IT? 

ciety and to himself, but you could never forget that he 
was not always so, that it was my hand that quenched 
the light of his intelligence and destroyed all that made 
him a moral being, walking forth under the sense of his 
accountability and royal manhood. 

Years ago, when I had my home in the East, one sum- 
mer day a mother started from a door of a rich mansion 
in the city of Reading, Pa., dressed in a snow-white 
garment. It was her wedding-dress, that in which she 
had stood at the sacred altar of love to unite her hand 
and life; with one of the wealthiest citizens of that opu- 
lent center of trade and tireless enterprise. By her side 
tripped her two lovely girls, also dressed in white, while in 
her arms she held her baby love, a bright-eyed boy six 
months old; and hanging on one arm was a basket con- 
taining two bits of cord, perhaps three or four feet each 
in length. She walked the thronging streets out to the 
green berme of the canal, out and off beyond the city 
limits. The passer-by noted the great tear rolling upon 
her cheek, and many turned to watch her steps as she 
passed out and on beyond the gaze of the cit 
Reaching a quiet, shady spot, she sat down. A plow- 
man in a field on the other side of the bright Schuylkill 
River beheld her in her pause, and then saw the little 
white-robed girls gayly and laughingly gathering stones 
and tilling the little basket which the mother held in her 
hand until it would hold no more. She then took one 
of the cords and bound that basket to her body and with 
the other bound her blue-eyed boy to her heart, and 
then kissing the little unsuspecting girls, who knew not 
what they had been doing as they gathered in their 
mirthful glee the stones for mother's basket, she folded 
them with her babe close to her breast and plunged for- 



THE SERMON, 99 

ward down the bank into the deep blue waters that 
flowed at her feet, weighted down — down by the basket 
of stones — mother and three children in one watery 
grave! When their bodies were borne to their once 
happy, but long since darkened home,, the man who had 
once sworn his love to this woman dared not to pollute 
the presence of that sorrow by remaining in his own 
house. The community knew full well that it was he 
who by his baseness and cruelty and falseness before 
God and man, and his perjury to every vow of love, had 
wrought this ruin and drove that wife and mother to 
madness and death; and nothing but a powerful guard 
and the massive prison walls within which he retreated 
saved him from the vengeance of the angered people, 
who would have torn his soul from his body could they 
but have laid their hands on him. 

True, it was her act, but he had blasted her home and 
crushed her heart and maddened her to very despair and 
death, and the whole people hissed between their teeth, 
"Blood ! Blood ! " as they pointed to him as the causative 
murderer of that woman and her babes. 

And, gentlemen of the jury — no : I turn from that em- 
panneled jury of six men to you, mothers; to you, wives; 
to you, sisters ; to you, children, and ask, Who killed Oscar 
Swineford? These six men say that "he did it by his 
own hand. " Do you believe that ? Would he have done 
it had he not been crushed and cursed by the whisky 
hell-holes of Parsons? Not one of you believe that this 
man would have rushed unbidden into the presence of 
God had not these vile men engaged in defying the 
law fitted him for the horrible act— an act which was a 
most fitting exposition of the murderous influence of the 
whisky saloons in our midst. I hold these rumsellers of 



100 WHY IS IT? 

our city as morally guilty of the murder of Oscar Swine- 
ford ! They have been the accessories of this deed of 
body and soul murder; they inspired this man with the 
demon-spirit and dare-devil impulse which ended in 
the work of the deadly pistol on that sad, dark Wednes- 
day night. If that man was a murderer before God, and 
"ye know no murderer hath eternal life, n these men, who 
despoiled him of his manhood, and damned with the 
sense of "nothing worth living for," are the greater 
criminals, the worse murderers! 

And as the drunkard cannot go to heaven, can the 
drunkard-maker? Are they not, when tried by the 
principles! of the Bible and every foundation-principle of 
morality, of truth, and eternal justice — are they not 
guilty of every crime that tills tip the catalogue of sin 
and death? Men who for the sake of money will know- 
ingly be instrumental in corrupting and poisoning the 
moral character and fitting their fellow-men for all vil- 
lainy — men who for the sake of money will sow the 
seeds of mental and moral ruin; who for the sake of 
money will burden the community in which they live 
with paupers, crowd the jails and penitentiaries with 
felons and feed the gallows with its victims; men who 
for the sake of money will spread disease and feast the 
hungry grave with dead bodies and hell with lost souls 
— O, there is no language out of hell dark enough to 
speak the name of such a moral monstrosity but the 
name — Rumseller! Yes, Eumseller ! Meanest and vil- 
est name that ever fell like soot-flake from the burning 
lips of hell to darken the vocabulary of earth — Uumsel- 
lers ! Ye incarnations of all villainy, ye murderers of 
the bodies and souls of men ! I charge you before God 
with the murder of Oscar Swineford. 



THE SERMON. 101 

There is an old superstition that tells that if a mur- 
derer of a murdered man be compelled to place his hand on 
the dead body, at the touch of that hand the wound will 
pour out afresh the red stream of blood. TVere this fable 
founded in reality I would have liked to call the roll of 
the whisky saloons in Parsons and have had every keeper 
of every groggery and every hell-hole pass before that 
jury and lay their foul hands on the body of their vic- 
tim. I would have called the owners of the houses 
rented to sell whisky, and as they placed their hands on 
that murdered man I would have said, " You gentlemen, 
and you ladies — you respectable property owners who 
have given your houses out for this work of death — 
you are not a whit better than the rumseller; your 
house is stained with blood! Blood is at your door. 
You know that your house is doing a work of death. 
You know that your rental is blood money and that it is 
ringing with the cries of broken hearts ! You know that 
your rental is the result of a work that is constantly 
creating paupers, manufacturing villains, filling our 
almshouses, jails, and penitentiaries — a work that pro- 
duces more than three fourths of all the crime in the 
land — and yet for the sake of money you consent to give 
over the keys into the blood-red hands of the rumseller, 
who is feeling, wolflike, for the life veins of the fathers, 
the husbands, the brothers, and the sons of Parsons. 
Ah, your blood-stained rentals are carrying ruin unto 
many a home of this city, despoiling many a hearthstone 
of comfort, and covering many, many of our children with 
beggary and rags, and, worse than poverty or death, crush- 
ing out from the hearts of loved ones all that is noble and 
manly, and turning them into loathsome brutes, abhorred 
lepers, miserable drunkards ! TV"e point you to the bars, 



102 WHY IS IT f 

the saloons, the cellars, the stalls all covered with the 
blood of souls, in the houses which you own, and in 
which you knowingly permit this work of robbery and 
murder, and we press before you the bony forms of the 
starving children that have been robbed of their bread 
by these houses; and while you ride out in your splendid 
carriages we shake in your faces the rags with which 
they have covered their victims; and while you build 
up wealth and fortunes out of the blood and BOUls of your 
fellow-men we go to your blood-stained homes and 
crape your doors and windows in mourning; for yours 
IS the house of death. And we thunder in your cars the 
word of Almighty Qod : 

" Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unright- 
eousness, and his chambers by wrong. . . . lie shall 
buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth 

beyond the gates of Jerusalem. 11 

"Woe unto him that coveteth an evil COVetOUSneSfl to 

his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may 
be delivered from the power of evil! TIlOU hast con- 
sulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, 
and hast sinned against thy soul. For the stone shall 
cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber 
shall answer it." 

Property owners, you are guilty before God of what- 
ever crimes grow out of that business to which you lend 
your property, knowingit to be a business of robbery and 
blood! I would not possess the whisky rentals of these 
houses, no, not for God's world! Blood is on them and 
God's curse is on them. 

Nor can I hold as guiltless of this murder our City 
Council, by whose act, and with deliberate intention, 
the sellers of rum have been emboldened to defvthe law. 



THE SERMON. 103 

With the price of " blackmailery " in your hands you 
consent that these law violators shall pursue their mur- 
derous business without interference from you; you, who 
ought to be the legal guardians of the city's morality 
and the stern maintainers of law and order! Instead of 
that you stultify your honest manhood, you ally your- 
selves with the lawbreakers, you become a party with 
the men who are imperiling the peace and prosperity of 
our community, you consent to betray every principle 
of honor and get down on your knees in the dirt under 
the slimy feet of the vile whisky ring in Parsons ; and 
for what? Gentlemen of the Council, if there's a brand 
of shame darker than Cain's you deserve it ! You did 
this act of splendid infamy to create a revenue, did 
you? Why did you not set on foot a monster cholera 
breeder ? or establish poisonous swamps in every ward, 
green with, the scum of death, that would engender 
fevers and pleurisies and leprosy, and then establish a 
coffin factory to create a demand for lumber, and so help 
our people to pay their taxes? Or why do you not spread 
the smallpox among the people, that they may die the 
faster, and thus bring in a couple hundred dollars more 
to your coffin factory? You might get a " start' 1 of small- 
pox at the Belmont. It has had its Marvins and others 
of no better conscience or morality; then it had its 
" smallpox "—the best thing it ever had since I have 
known it. 

Had you, men of the Council, placed the city officially 
on the side of law this murder had not happened ; Oscar 
Swineford would be living to-day. He was not the 
worst of men. A man who carries with him in all his 
wanderings a mother's likeness, a child's photograph, has 
some good spot in his heart. But how shall I speak of 



104 WHY IS IT? 

that mother? Is she yet living ? The smallest funeral I 
ever attended met in this church one wild, stormy day 
last week. A mother had borne her son to this place for 
more than two hundred miles west of Kansas City. Last 
November death had smitten him with his cold, relent- 
less hand, and he had been given to the dust close by 
that distant " ranch " home, expecting that to be his 
slumber-bed until the waking of the last day; but fail- 
ing health forced that mother to seek a milder clime, 
and she bore her dead boy to Parsons that she might lay 
his body in your cemetery. " Here," said she. as sin- 
told the story of her sorrow, "here, in this house, my 
Walter used to come every Sabbath to the Sunday school, 
and it was in this town that he gave his heart to Christ 
and look on him the name of Jesus and united with the 
Church, and I could not bear to leave him behind. n 
And as I stood before that mother, and the friend that 
came with her, and the undertaker (these forming the 
whole funeral congregation), I could say, " Mother, 
weep not; ' Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord;' 
your Walter is not lost, only gone before, and your fail- 
ing health tells that the separation will not belong; not 
long, mother; you shall meet Walter soon! 

4 0, how sweet it will he in that beautiful land, 

So free from all sorrow and pain ; 
With songs on your lips, and with harps in }'onr hands, 

To meet your dear Walter again.' " 

But what message must I bear to the mother of Oscar 
Swineford, should it be mine to meet her on earth.'' 
" No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God!" 
Weep, mother, weep! Rachael-like refuse to be com- 
forted! Mother, we killed your boy! we killed your 



THE SERMON, 105 

boy, but we gave him a decent burial — a decent burial ! 
And who were the mourners at that funeral? The men 
who stand before God as his murderers? The saloon- 
keepers that robbed him of his money, that poisoned his 
soul and held him in their pirate tolls till they had 
crushed out all of hope, and dragging him down lower 
and lower, until out their hands he drops into the 
agonies of an eternal hell — were they there? And the 
owners of the houses whose rentals are deep-stained 
with the blood of Oscar Swineford — were they there ? 
And the lawyers, who for a price sell their souls and 
their consciences, their manhood, their truthfulness, 
their honor, their God, their humanity, that they may 
do the dirty, lying work of the rumsellers — were they 
there? And the men who are under solemn oath to en- 
force the law as they find it, but who use their position 
to make the lawbreakers safe; whose official acts are 
studied efforts to serve the whisky ring, to nullify the 
law, to make it inefficient, and who, while technically 
clear, perhaps, of perjury, are morally false to their oaths 
of office, and as much the servants of rum as though 
they held a " retainer " to do its work — were they there? 
And our Town Council, was it represented as chief of 
the pallbearers at this decent burial of Oscar Swineford 
in their potter's field ? Ah, poor Oscar Swineford ! What 
cared these men for the shame of the potter's field? They 
had gotten your money; they had robbed you of your 
honor, crushed out your manhood, blasted your every 
hope, and damned you to a drunkard's hell ! What cared 
they for your potter's field burial? Yes, mother, we gave 
him a decent burial, such a burial as the rumseller always 
gives his victims, in the pauper's grave, in the potter's 
field! Wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, your hus- 



106 WHY IS IT? 

bands, your sons, your brothers, your fathers may come 
in next for a decent burial at the hands of our rumsell- 
ersJ They are doing their work of ruin in their hidden 
dens of robbery and murder every day, and, tigerlike, 
they are licking their insatiate lips for the blood of your 
dear ones! And you, women of Parsons, unless this 
work of death is stopped, will have pressed to your lips 
a cup of shame md sorrow that will wring your hearts 
with a bitterness worse than a thousand deaths! 

Do you say " No danger?" Listen then to the story 
of this demon's work as it conies from the lips of John B. 
Cough, who has seen more of its blight and ruin than 
any other man. Said l.e, "A minister of the (■ 
pel told me one of T thrilling incidents I < 

heard in my life. A member of his congregation ca 

home for the first time intoxicated, and his boy met him 
upon the doorstep clapping his hands and exclaim" 
' Papa has come !' He seized the boy by the should 
swung him around, staggered, and fell in the hall. The 

minister said to me ' I spent the night in that house. I 
went out, bared my brow that tin 1 night air might fall 
upon it and cool it. I walked up and down the hall. 
There was his child, dead ! there was his wife in strong 
convulsions, and he n sleep 1 — a man about thirty y< 
of age asleep with a dead child in the house havi; 
blue mark upon the temple where the corner of the mar- 
ble steps had come in contact with the head as he swung 
him around and a wife upon the brink of the grave! 
'Mr. Gough,' said my friend, ' I cursed the drink. lie 
told me that I must remain until he awoke, and I did. 
"When he awoke lie- passed his hand over his face and ex- 
claimed, l What is the matter? where am I? where is my 
boy V ' You cannot see him.' ' Stand out of my way. I 



THE SERMON. 107 

will see my boy.' To prevent confusion I took him to 
the child's bed, and as I turned down the sheet and 
showed him the corpse he uttered a wild shriek, ' Ah, 
my child V That minister said further to me, ' One 
year after that he was brought from an insane asylum, 
to lie side by side with his wife in one grave, and I at- 
tended the funeral.' The minister of the Gospel who told 
that fact is to-day a drunken hostler in a stable in Bos- 
ton. ISTow tell me what rum will not do. It will debase, 
degrade, imbrute, and damn everything that is noble, 
bright, glorious, and Godlike in a human being There 
is nothing that drink will not do that is vile, dastardly, 
cowardly, sneaking, or hellish. Ko man, no family is 
safe against its deadly power. Then are we not to fight 
till the day of our death? " 

A silver star set in the floor marks the spot where 
Garfield fell when the assassin's bullet went tearing 
through his body in the work of death. And could I 
will it the spot where Oscar Swineford fell would be 
marked — yes, marked/ — not by a silver star, but by a 
never-drying, ever-running stream of blood! And I 
would give it voice and utterance, and it should cry out 
day and night, "Murder! murder! blood! blood!'' 
against the rumsellers of Parsons! 



THE END. 



